Consolidation in the software business is accelerating, and Santa Clara-based Rational Software Corp announced yesterday it is extending its expertise into testing with definitive agreement to acquire Pure Atria Corp, exchanging 0.90 shares of Rational for each share of Pure Atria. The terms put an indicated value on the deal of just over $700m, but that is before $30m in shares Pure issued in its acquisition of Integrity QA Software Inc, and before any options it has outstanding. Pure Atria specializes in automated software quality control for Windows, Web and Unix development teams. Rational said it aimed to create a software company that would operate globally with products to automate the component-based development of software applications. Separately, Pure Atria, which did $6.6m net on sales of $132m last year, warned that revenue and earnings for its first quarter to March 31 would be below analysts’ forecasts. The Sunnyvale company expects first quarter earnings to be between about $0.02 per share and $0.04 per share, before the one-time charge for the acquisition of Integrity QA Software. The First Call consensus earnings estimate for the first quarter was $0.12 per share, up from the $0.09 the company did this time last year. First quarter sales would likely be around $30m, it said.