‘Cloudy’ outlook for performance management M&A

Contact: Dennis Callaghan

The emergence of the cloud as a deployment option for IT performance monitoring tools is spurring a wave of M&A activity in this space as a new group of vendors emerges as consolidators. After a slow start last year, the market picked up with the take-privates of BMC Software in May and Keynote Systems in June. Those were followed by several smaller deals, including two by Idera (Precise Software and CopperEgg), which hadn’t done a deal since 2010, and Splunk’s first acquisitions (BugSense and Cloudmeter).

We don’t expect it to end there: IT performance management is a target-rich environment flush with venture-backed startups, such as Catchpoint Systems and several others that could likely end up as part of a larger organization. Also, some of the vendors involved in 2013’s deals figure to be acquisitive this year. BMC, for example, was a consolidator as a public company, and we expect to see more of the same from it under its PE consortium. Thoma Bravo companies almost always become acquirers, and we expect Keynote to explore expanding its performance monitoring capabilities from the last mile in, as opposed to the inside-out pattern we normally see in this space.

Subscribers to 451 Research can access our longer report, including analysis of additional likely acquirers and targets, by clicking here.

Select performance management M&A, 2013

Date announced Acquirer Target Deal value
May 6 PE consortium BMC Software $6.9bn
June 24 Thoma Bravo Keynote Systems $395m
July 2 Idera Precise Software Solutions Not disclosed
July 9 Idera CopperEgg Not disclosed
July 9 Kaseya Zyrion $50m*
September 16 Splunk BugSense $9m
September 19 AppDynamics Nodetime Not disclosed
October 8 SolarWinds Confio Software $103m
November 5 SolarWinds AppNeta Undisclosed investment
December 9 SmartBear Software Lucierna Not disclosed
December 10 Splunk Cloudmeter $21m

Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase *451 Research estimate

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