Sterling Software Inc has announced that said it plans to purchase Fremont, California-based Interlink Computer Sciences Inc in a deal worth approximately $64bn. The merger will take place in a two-stage process. Under the first step, Sterling will purchase all Interlink’s outstanding shares for $7 per share in cash. Following completion of the tender offer, Interlink will be merged with Sterling’s worldwide network management business, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sterling Software, and the remaining Interlink shareholders will be given the option to sell their shares at the same price per share. The acquisition, which has already been approved by Interlink’s board of directors, is due to close in late April or early May, the companies said.
Interlink specializes in software that enables businesses to use their IBM and IBM-compatible OS/390 mainframes as enterprise servers in distributed client/server environments. The software enables companies to provide secure, managed access to their enterprise applications and data over public (TCP/IP) and private connections. This acquisition brings us tremendous opportunities to strengthen our strategic position in the marketplace and capitalize on the explosive growth of the internet as a cost- effective, open network for enterprise computing, said Sterling Williams, the president and CEO of Sterling Software. Specifically, Sterling will integrate Interlink’s two main products, TCPaccess and e-Control, with its line of network management software, SOLVE: Netmaster. TCPaccess is the TCP/IP stack which allows users, connected to IP-based networks, to access data and applications running on OS/390 mainframes while e-Control is the software that manages the whole environment.
Sterling’s product, SOLVE works like e-Control but also provides management capabilities for all IBM SNA and TCP/IP based systems, not just 390s. Doug Bertinshaw, VP of Sterling’s network management division’s labs, said the integration of Interlink’s products into SOLVE gives Sterling the ability to offer an all round product to enable companies to open up their mainframe systems to the web. In the past, we only had the software to manage the environment, but with this acquisition, we get the underpinning technology too. Under the terms of the deal, Bertinshaw said that all 160 plus Interlink employees will transfer to Sterling’s 200-person strong network management unit, although the fine details have not yet been finalized. The acquisition will be Sterling’s second purchase of a systems management company in less than three weeks and its thirty-third acquisition in total. Earlier this month, it bought the storage management software business of Spectra Logic Corp.
