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Novell buys datacentre-management services firm

Tom Espiner ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 15 Oct 2008 13:12 BST

Open-source company Novell is to acquire the business-services management firm Managed Objects.

Novell announced on Tuesday that it would acquire Managed Objects to add data and workload monitoring tools to the Novell portfolio.

"This acquisition extends Novell's strategy of making IT work as one in the datacentre," said Joe Wagner, senior vice president of systems and resource management at Novell. "Managed Objects's products are very complementary to our existing management and virtualisation capabilities."

Senior Canalys analyst Andy Buss told ZDNet.co.uk on Wednesday that the deal made sense from Novell's point of view, especially considering its licensing deal with Microsoft.

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"It fits with where Novell wants to go — the services-based model," said Buss. "Partnership with Microsoft will probably help it gain access to a broader datacentre install base where people are running heterogeneous environments."

Buss said that Novell's plan to move into business-services management (BSM) would make them more competitive with companies such as CA and IBM, who operate in the same market.

"It will make [Novell] more competitive in the whole CA area, which will be critical as businesses move to cloud computing and virtualisation," said Buss.

Novell did not disclose how much Managed Objects would cost to buy, but said it would acquire the firm using "current cash". Novell expects the acquisition to close during the first fiscal quarter of 2009, subject to regulatory approval. Managed Objects will be subsumed into Novell's Systems and Resource Management business unit.