BMC today signed a definitive agreement to acquire BladeLogic for $800 million, or $28 per share. Although BMC denies it, it is essentially their answer to HP’s acquisition of Opsware, in that it adds server and application provisioning to BMC’s portfolio.

As fits BMC’s pattern, both companies already know each other fairly well. According to Dev Ittycheria, BladeLogic's president and CEO, BMC’s Remedy service desk is already in about 90% of BladeLogic’s accounts, and there is already two-way integration between the tools. For instance, BladeLogic can initiate the provisioning of software onto a server in response to a Remedy trouble ticket, and can update the Remedy database once the action is completed. There are a couple additional integration points. For instance, BladeLogic has recently completed an integration with BMC’s Atrium CMDB, so that changes to server provisioning will automatically show up there. Additionally, BladeLogic has developed a tie-in with RealOps, BMC’s IT workflow automation tool (often called Run Book Automation). 

Both companies discount the Opsware comparison because they claim that BladeLogic is a more integrated tool. It was built from the ground up to do server provisioning, whereas Opsware remains a bundling of server, storage, and network provisioning, plus the run book automation piece that came together through acquisition. The other way of looking at it is that BladeLogic is more specialized than Opsware.

BladeLogic, which has been around for nearly a decade, competed its IPO last year. Although the companies had different origins – Opsware started as LoudCloud, a managed services provider, before it sold that business to EDS and kept the tools, while BladeLogic’s 2007 was much like Opsware’s 2006. Both companies were on the verge, or just turned profitable, and timed their IPOs accordingly. And both readied themselves for acquisition, which made for some interesting parallels:

• In the 12 months ending September 2007, BladeLogic’s net loss was $174,000 on revenues of $62 million, compared to a net loss of $8.2 million on $30 million revenues the year before. The BMC acquisition came about six months afterward.
• In the 12 months ending early 2007, Opsware cleared its first $100 million year, but had not yet broken into the black. It was also acquired by HP nearly six months later.
• Going into the deal, BMC already had the IT workflow automation; with BladeLogic, it gets the tool that performs that IT provisioning workflows. And it complement Emprisa, which provides the network automation counterpart for BladeLogic.

As both companies are public, the deal is still subject to shareholder approval. BMC is extending a tender offer, which would be followed by formal merger; BMC expects the deal to close in 45 days.

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