Compuware Expands Application Monitoring Capabilities With Gomez Acquisition

Compuware is acquiring Gomez, a developer of Web application management tools, for $295 million in cash, the companies said Wednesday.

Compuware said the acquisition would add to its line of application performance monitoring and management software, expanding its application monitoring capabilities beyond corporate data centers to applications running on the Internet, in cloud-computing environments and on mobile devices.

Compuware expects to complete the deal in November.

"The combined solution is compelling," said Bob Paul, Compuware president and COO, during a conference call. "This makes us the largest [Software-as-a-Service] infrastructure provider," he added, noting that both companies deliver their monitoring tools using a SaaS model.

Businesses increasingly want a consolidated view of realtime performance data from applications running within their data centers as well as applications running on the Web, Paul said. While Compuware's tools monitor applications running within the firewall, they have largely lacked the ability to monitor Internet and cloud-computing applications -- a capability provided by the Gomez product line.

Paul said Compuware's competitors have struggled to provide the kind of consolidated view his company can now provide. "We think we've changed a two-year advantage into a four- or five-year advantage," he said of Compuware's technology lead.

A slide included in a presentation that accompanied the conference call identified BMC, CA, Hewlett-Packard and IBM as Compuware's chief competitors.

Compuware has focused its efforts recently on application performance monitoring products. In May, the company sold off its software quality testing tools to Micro Focus to concentrate on application performance and IT portfolio management products.

Privately held Gomez is based in Lexington, Mass., and has 272 employees. Compuware said it expected "substantially all" of Gomez's executives and employees to remain with Compuware. The company had sales of $47 million in 2008. Gomez was profiled as a Channelweb.com emerging vendor in February.

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