Missed the point of the acquistion.
MRO is the leader in computerized maintenance management systems; the IT asset management they do was incidental but important for them to acquire as a defensive play. The CMMS market is consolidating just as it begins to co-opt the calibration management systems (pulling in those related functions since they are so close).
Datastream was number two, and were absorbed by Infor earlier this year. Infor is pushing an ERP play against Oracle and SAP, both of which have inferior CMMS/ CCMS tools. IBM grabs MRO, doing a few things to the various markets:
1) it puts a huge financial backer behind the market/
technical leader in CMMS, enabling them to co-opt
calibration eventually and take that market lead as
well;
2) it keeps MRO out of Oracle's and SAP's hands, denying
them a solid piece of augmentation in their upcoming
battle against Microsoft (oh yeah)
3) it puts asset management tools in IBM's hands, thus
putting some real meat in Tivoli's system management
suite. Now you can not only track device uptimes,
back them up, manage them remotely... you can track
their TOTAL cost, roll it up in organized hierarchies,
use auto-discovery to manage your IT investments, etc.
4) puts some very smart, customer-focused people under
the IBM umbrella. MRO can now grow with a bigger
safety net underneath them.
Now *that's* how you do anaylsis.
-C
Biting the hand that feeds IT
