News

CA to Acquire Nimsoft

Buys system, network, and cloud network monitoring tools vendor.

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• 03/11/2010

CA Inc. has agreed to acquire Nimsoft, a closely held provider of system, network, and cloud network monitoring tools targeted at small and mid-sized enterprises, for $350 million in cash.

The deal marks CA's fifth acquisition in nine months and underscores the company's desire to extend its reach in managing cloud-based systems. CA is acquiring the company for a premium; Nimsoft's 2009 revenues were $32 million, up 18 percent from 2008. It has 800 customers, 300 of which are managed services providers (MSPs).

Nimsoft gives CA entry to the small and mid-sized enterprise segment that has been elusive to the company. CA is best known for managing large mainframe-based systems.

Nimsoft's Unified Monitoring suite monitors servers, networks, databases, virtual machines, and applications running within mid-sized businesses, bringing the company revenues ranging from $300 million to $2 billion. "We want to reach new customers and we want to reach them in way we haven't been able to develop well here in CA over a couple of tries," said William McCracken, CA's recently appointed chairman and CEO, speaking on an investor call announcing the deal.

In addition to monitoring systems of mid-sized enterprises, Nimsoft's software is used by MSPs to provide performance data of combined on-premises and hosted systems. MSPs use Nimsoft's software to establish and monitor service-level agreements (SLAs).  The software also offers monitoring and reporting of public cloud services for Amazon Web Services, Google, and Rackspace. "It furthers our cloud strategy by providing monitoring capabilities for public and private cloud environments," McCracken said.

The deal is scheduled to close by the end of the month. Nimsoft, based in Redwood Shores, Calif., will operate as a CA subsidiary while continuing to be led by Nimsoft CEO Gary Reed, who will report to CA's Cloud Products and Solutions Business.