SOA Software to Buy Blue Titan

There’s more consolidation afoot among smaller service-oriented architecture (SOA) players, with SOA Software due to formally announce the acquisition of Blue Titan Monday.

The purchase is SOA Software’s fourth since September 2004, according to company executives.

SOA, a way to create and manage IT systems through reusable software and services, is proving increasingly popular among corporations.

SOA Software wants to establish itself as a complete provider of necessary systems infrastructure for deployments of the technology, according to Ian Goldsmith, vice president of product marketing at SOA Software. At the same time, the vendor aims to ensure interoperability between its software and the SOA services and applications provided by larger players like BEA Systems, IBM, Oracle and SAP. Since the company doesn’t have its own SOA applications platform, SOA Software can remain vendor-neutral in support, Goldsmith said.

The addition of Blue Titan’s messaging management and policy-based standards mediation technologies will complement SOA Software’s focus on Web services management, security and governance, he added.

“It’s a perfect fit and makes a tremendous amount of sense,” said Frank Martinez, chief executive officer, chief technology officer and founder of Blue Titan. Martinez becomes executive vice president at SOA Software in charge of product strategy.

Both Martinez and Goldsmith declined to put a figure on the acquisition, which will result in a combined company employing about 200 people, they said.

SOA Software plans to continue support for Blue Titan’s Network Director software and will retain the product’s name, according to Roberto Medrano, executive vice president at SOA Software.

Equally as important as the purchase of Blue Titan’s technology is the taking on of that company’s partnerships with Cisco Systems, Intel, SAP and IBM’s WebSphere middleware unit, Medrano said. Those relationships fit well with SOA Software’s own existing ties with BEA, CA, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and other parts of IBM’s business, he added.

SOA Software’s three other acquisitions were Merrill Lynch & Co.’s X4ML mainframe Web service development and deployment platform in December of last year, along with the outright purchase of two companies—event-based reliable messaging vendor ThoughtDigital in March 2005 and SOA infrastructure rival Flamenco Networks in September 2004.

SOA Software recorded revenue of US$29.9 million in 2005 and is keen to grow to a $100 million business within the next few years, according to Medrano. The company has raised $35 million in venture capital funding so far, he said.

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— China Martens, IDG News Service