CA (NASDAQ:CA) to Acquire Nimsoft

CA Inc (NasdaqCA) announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Nimsoft Inc--a leading provider of IT performance and availability monitoring solutions for emerging enterprises and Managed Service Providers (MSPs)--in an all-cash transaction valued at 350 million

The acquisition significantly extends CAs ability to meet the unique IT management needs of emerging enterprises and MSPs both of which are playing leading roles in the growth of cloud computing CA estimates that emerging enterprises which it categorizes as organizations with annual revenues from 300 million to 2 billion will account for approximately a quarter of the software spending in CAs market space by 2013 By leveraging Nimsofts market expertise and technology CA expects to add an entirely new set of customers to its base which historically has been comprised of large enterprises

Nimsofts technology and go-to-market approach also will leverage CAs presence in growing international markets--where the Company expects cloud computing and hostedmanaged services to play a central role in business development

With our planned acquisition of Nimsoft CA will be equipped to capture several important growth market segments--including emerging enterprises emerging national economies and the MSPs who are providing these customers with IT management services via the cloud said Chris OMalley CAs executive vice president Cloud Products and Solutions Business Line Penetration of these markets will further expand our global leadership in IT management and complement our existing strength with large enterprise customers

Nimsoft Unified Monitoring Solution

The Nimsoft Unified Monitoring solution is designed to allow MSPs complete visibility into the performance and availability of their customers business applications across both internal and external IT infrastructures Its broad capabilities and easy deployment and automated maintenance make it an optimal solution for MSPs Its automated implementation can help accelerate time-to-value and its advanced features are specifically designed to streamline monitoring of a wide range of business applications for multiple customers--advantages that MSPs around the world are leveraging to improve service expand offerings and boost margins

Nimsoft has developed monitoring and reporting solutions for public cloud and on-demand offerings like Google Apps for Business The Rackspace Cloud Amazon Web Services and EC2 Salesforcecom as well as internal applications databases and physical and virtual server environments

Todays announcement follows CAs recent acquisitions of Cassatt NetQoS and Oblicore and the planned acquisition of 3Tera

As the way organizations deploy business services continues to shift the way they manage those services must also shift said Dennis Callaghan senior analyst at The 451 Group CAs acquisition of Nimsoft--following its other recent acquisitions in the cloud computing space--demonstrates that CA is expanding its capabilities to meet the needs of its existing enterprise customers while also stepping up to address those of the emerging enterprise and MSP sectors

The acquisition also will extend CAs leadership position in the Service Assurance market segment offering one of the most comprehensive suites of IT monitoring and management solutions in the industry These solutions provide IT organizations with complete insight into application behaviors and infrastructure health helping them to ensure the reliability of critical business services and optimally utilize available hardware capacity

Nimsoft was originally established as Nimbus Software in 1998 and renamed Nimsoft in 2004 It has approximately 800 customers including nearly 300 MSPs and operates primarily in the United States and Europe CA intends to work closely with Nimsofts robust network of MSPs hosting providers outsourcing providers and partners to penetrate emerging markets

CA and Nimsoft are a perfect match said Gary Read Nimsoft president and CEO who will be joining CA We are joining a company that wrote the book on enterprise management Were bringing a very strong track record of success in the hosted and managed services segment and with mid-market enterprises CA clearly shares our commitment to address customers evolving requirements for the management of their IT systems including their move to virtualization and the cloud

Nimsofts operations will report under CAs Cloud Products and Solutions Business Line It is anticipated that the majority of Nimsofts approximately 120 employees will remain with CA after the completion of the transaction which is expected to close by the end of CAs fourth fiscal quarter ending March 31 2010

The acquisition is expected to have minimal impact on fiscal year 2010 results and to be dilutive to earnings per share in fiscal year 2011 (PR Newswire)