Micro Focus Buying Borland, Compuware Software Tools

Micro Focus International is becoming an application management powerhouse via plans to acquire Borland Software and Compuware's application testing tool product line.

Micro Focus Wednesday said the deal to buy application life-cycle management (ALM) vendor Borland has a price tag of $75 million ($67 million net of Borland's cash). The acquisition is expected to close either late in the second quarter or early in the third quarter. The Compuware technology acquisition is worth $80 million, and Micro Focus expects to complete that transaction by the end of the second quarter, according to a statement.

Micro Focus, once known primarily as a supplier of Cobol development tools, has been aggressively expanding its product lineup in application testing and application quality management. The company has made five other acquisitions since late 2006 in those technology areas.

Micro Focus is based in Newbury, U.K. , with U.S. headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

The acquisition of Borland ends a long run for a company that was a pioneer in the early days of the PC boom. Founded in 1983 and led by its flamboyant CEO Philippe Kahn, Borland ranked alongside Lotus, WordPerfect and other early PC software vendors with its Quattro Pro Spreadsheet and Paradox desktop database software.

Borland has undergone a number of transitions since its heyday, focusing on development tools earlier this decade and more on ALM software in recent years.

The Borland acquisition will bring a portfolio of application testing, automated software quality, requirements management and project portfolio management tools to Micro Focus' product lineup.

In the Compuware deal, Micro Focus will specifically acquire that company's software quality solutions product line. Compuware said in the statement that it's making the sale because it wants to focus its attention on its application performance, mainframe utilization and IT portfolio management products.

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