Systems management specialist BMC Software Inc has finally exercised an option, taken out in March 95, to purchase 100% of DataTools Inc a private company based in Sunnyvale California, which develops backup and recovery systems. The purchase was made for $60m in cash: BMC is currently capitalised at around $5bn on the New York Stock Exchange. The acquisition will add further products to BMC’s open systems-based products: it already offers more than 30 different database backup and recovery systems. DataTools has used BMC as its sole distributor for backup and recovery products since the option to buy the company was taken out. The strategy has been to wait and see how the partnership developed before committing to a full scale integration. The option to buy was not due to expire until March 1998 but DataTools, which turned over $20m last year, has been growing fast enough to make an early purchase worth while. Post merger, the DataTools brand name will be maintained but with the addition of ‘BMC Software’ to the label.
