First Telelogic, Now Proforma Corp?

It seems that once again we are seeing a round of consolidation and roll-ups in the Modeling Tool market.

Firstly we see IBM bidding for Telelogic, a deal which most observers are expecting to close soon – which has to be good news for the poor Telelogic sales people, who are seeing sales stall as customers wait to see what happens next. Indeed I think we might all wonder at what IBM plans to do with all those modeling tools and how it will present a coherent view to the world. With System Architect, Rational Rose, Holosofx, and Tau – as well as other parts in the portfolio, it seems that IBM themselves might be spoilt for choice. But, as well all know too much choice makes it harder for customers to decide.

Then just last week we saw IDS announce that they were setting up direct operations in Australia and in the UK Proforma announced that they had purchased their UK distributer and thus created a direct presence. This last move has been well overdue, in order for Proforma to be seriously credible they have long needed to build a stronger direct international presence and so this moves is logical, although the timing is very interesting.

I suspect that the timing may have to do with another deal that we are yet to hear about. I think we may see that Proforma themselves will be acquired in the next few weeks. Oracle have long been rumored to be looking to make an acquisition in the space and were seen as suitors for Popkin prior to the Telelogic takeover. But for my money HP may be seen as a more likely acquirer of Proforma. HP have clearly stated that they intend to grow the software side of their business and to do so through acquisition.

HP and Proforma have a historical relationship going back several years and indeed the ProVision tool was used to assist HP in the HP Compaq merger, the tool being used in the clean room to help set up the new organization. Whether HP, Oracle or someone else, Proforma would be as good fit, with its relative ease of use, good installed base and rich functionality, whoever wants a fast leg up in the modeling market will be interested.

If as I suspect such a deal goes through, this will pretty well leave MEGA International along with IDS as the only two real players in the "independent" modeling tool space. Which then poses the question is there such a market?

As ever only time will tell, but interesting times ahead of that we can be sure.