The long-rumoured amalgamation of the UK’s two major cable broadband providers, NTL and TeleWest Global, was finally agreed as NTL announced a $6 billion deal to acquire its rival. M&A activity, elsewhere though, was dominated by big players making small ‘infilling’ deals.

That was the case at two of the world’s largest software companies, Symantec and Computer Associates (CA), where both made tactical acquisitions to strengthen their compliance offerings.

Symantec swooped on directory and access management vendor BindView Development, paying $209 million, and said it would add the acquisition to its policy compliance and vulnerability management portfolio. BindView’s agent-less access control technology is particularly suited to businesses that have a large number of branch offices, where installing updates and patches can be a logistical nightmare.

CA’s acquisition of iLumin Software, which provides enterprise message management and archiving software, will sit within its BrightStor storage management software, but will address corporate compliance requirements for retaining email. In email archiving, CA has its eye on a market Gartner expects will grow at a compound annual rate of 58% over the next five years to be worth some $885 million in 2010.

Elsewhere, IT project management technology vendors were the target, with Legadero Software and Wind2 Software snapped up for undisclosed fees.

Software development platform maker Borland made its long-anticipated move into the IT project arena with its buy-out of Legadero. Analysts, such as Bola Rotibi at Ovum, thought the move made a lot of sense: “Ever since Borland announced its Software Delivery Optimisation strategy and delivered the first role-based solutions to realise that vision the company has been exposed to some noticeable gaps in its offering.”

It might be a tiny – with just 20 employees – but Legadero’s Tempo suite of tools for project prioritisation, budgeting, resource allocations and other aspects of “IT governance” will significantly strengthen Borland’s SDO story, enabling it to target more senior IT management over and above its traditional audience of development chiefs.

With less of a specific focus on IT, project resource management software and services vendor Deltek, now run by former PeopleSoft CFO and co-president Kevin Parker, was also in the mood to expand its footprint. In its case, it moved on one of its smaller rivals Wind2. Wind2’s Financial Management System is used by 3,000 project-focused professional services firms and will swell Deltek’s customer base to 11,000.