2010 Ends with a Vendor Buying Spree

Teradata Corp. announced that it would acquire Aprimo Inc., while Salesforce.com, Inc. said it would purchase Etacts Inc. In other acquisition news, Dell Inc. entered agreements to buy InSite One, Inc. and BMC Software, Inc. said that it is acquiring GridApp Systems Inc.

Focal Points:

• Teradata said that is has acquired Aprimo, a provider of Web-based integrated marketing software, for $525 million in cash. According to Teradata, Aprimo offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application that manages e-mail and other marketing campaigns as well as their budgets, and measures the campaigns' return on investment (ROI). Teradata has not yet released a joint roadmap or integration details. The company will provide more information after the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011. However, Teradata has said that it will continue to develop and support its own Relationship Manager applications as well as the Aprimo Marketing Studio. These applications will be available on-premise or hosted, Teradata added. Separately, Salesforce announced that it has acquired e-mail contact management startup Etacts Inc. The company did not disclose the terms of the deal or how it plans to integrate Etacts into Salesforce.
• Dell is buying InSite One, a storage-as-a-service provider for the U.S. health market, for an undisclosed amount. The InSite One service provides off-premise storage of health data and data warehousing centers with geographically-dispersed mirror archiving and encryption. According to Dell, the service reassures health professionals that sensitive patient files will be held safely and securely, yet can be shared and exchanged. InSite One also offers an on-premise version of its service.
• BMC announced that it is acquiring GridApp Systems, a provider of database automation solutions for provisioning, patching, and administration, for an undisclosed amount. According to BMC, the company will integrate GridApp software into its enterprise application deployment and management portfolio to expand its automation and configuration tools. GridApp software is already integrated with BMC's BladeLogic Server Automation suite, BMC added.

Experton Group believes the cloud computing acquisitions were part of the general trend of cloud providers expanding into adjacent spaces. Dell's purchase of InSite One strengthens its new storage products and services lines while also gaining greater access to the hot healthcare market.  Similarly, Teradata should be able to leverage its existing customer base for maximum growth of Aprimo SaaS application sales, provided it can create a clear roadmap and integration strategy that its customers like.

The BMC acquisition fills in gaps in current offerings while the Salesforce.com purchase will most likely be integrated into its workflow management capabilities. IT executives should continue to view the cloud computing space as immature and fluid and therefore should ensure that contract terms and conditions address the impacts that result from mergers and acquisitions.