Peregrine Systems Inc has paid $105 million in cash and shares to acquire service desk software products from Tivoli Systems Inc, which is owned by IBM, to boost its customer base and reduce competition in the market.
Allen Lewis, Peregrine GM at sole South African distributor CCH Enterprise Solutions, says the deal makes sense as both Peregrine and Tivoli offer service desk software used to manage corporate computer networks.
CCH and Tivoli/IBM SA will be meeting early in the new year to discuss how the deal will affect Tivoli`s 10-plus local service desk accounts, which include some of South Africa`s largest blue-chip organisations. Globally Tivoli has 1 000 existing customers of its Service Desk suite, which includes problem management, change management and asset management products.
"This is a very positive development for companies which depend on their service desks," says Lewis. "Peregrine has worked with Tivoli for many years in ensuring interoperability of products, and this agreement will allow both companies to focus on what we each do best."
Peregrine assumes support and maintenance for Tivoli`s Service Desk suite, and will strengthen the existing integration of Peregrine products such as ServiceCenter and AssetCenter with Tivoli enterprise systems and network management products.
Initially, support for the Service Desk Suite will remain unchanged. But Peregrine will migrate Tivoli`s customers to its own product set over the next 18 months, and will eventually close down Tivoli`s Service Desk software.
Peregrine has expanded its marketing and sales relationship with IBM Global Services. IBM Global Services, which has been selling Peregrine technology for over six years, will now offer infrastructure management systems that combine technologies from Peregrine and Tivoli.
"The agreement with IBM Global Services gives Peregrine access to a potentially huge marketplace and revenues," adds Lewis.
Peregrine does not expect the purchase of Tivoli`s software to have any impact on earnings in 2001.
A special Web address - www.peregrine.com/tivoli - has been set up for Service Desk customers to obtain information from Peregrine electronically.
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