Rockville, Maryland-based process configuration management company Intersolv Inc has added a fourth string to its bow with the acquisition of UK lifecycle management firm SQL Software Ltd for $20m. Intersolv has to date had three strings to its PVCS software configuration management product, software configuration management, issue and change management and software testing tools. With SQL, it adds lifecycle management, a workflow system for tracking the whole of a development cycle. SQL has 75 employees and turnover of around $9m. Intersolv says SQL is particularly strong in the defense telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries, where Intersolv’s strengths have been in financial services. These customers are now demanding the lifecycle tools, says Intersolv, and it believes it can take SQL’s technology to a far wider market. Both companies have already been benefiting from a number of external drivers, not least of which are Year 2000 fix projects, Euro conversions, electronic commerce and legislation and regulation. All of these issues involve enterprise level changes, rather than just project level, says Tony Hill of Intersolv UK, and therefore require lifecycle management and testing tools. Hill says the two companies will merge as one, although they will continue to operate out of their existing two locations, both in Hertfordshire in the UK. SQL’s major revenue to date has come from the UK and the US, and Intersolv says its own global business and infrastructure will benefit SQL enormously. Hill says both companies have been successful in their own right, and Intersolv intends to create an even more successful business, by keeping all SQL’s staff and expanding the company.
