"For businesses today, having information about software assets is crucial to making the right decisions," said Al Zollar, general manager, IBM Tivoli software (pictured), as IBM  announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Isogon Corporation, a privately held company based in New York, NY. Isogon's operations will be integrated into IBM's Tivoli infrastructure management software business, which produced double-digit revenue growth in 2004 and the first quarter of 2005.

The acquisition builds upon the companies' existing relationship, which includes more than 200 customers worldwide. Isogon's technology will be available from IBM and its business partners. It also  taps into the growing demand for software that simplifies and automates the way companies manage software expenditures and usage. According to IDC, a global market intelligence and advisory firm for the information technology industry, overall spending on worldwide IT asset management will increase from $971 million in 2004, to $1.33 billion in 2009.

Isogon is a leading provider of technology that can automatically track inventory and measure usage of software running on mainframe computers. This complements IBM's Tivoli License Manager software, which provides similar functions for distributed systems using Windows, Linux, UNIX, and other platforms.

With the acquisition, IBM will offer a total software asset management solution, enabling companies to gain a single, cross-platform view of software inventory, usage and licenses for their operating systems, middleware and packaged applications -- all through a simple, Web-browser interface.

The combination of Isogon and IBM technology is designed to help customers solve software licensing management problems, such as identifying growth patterns in software usage and tying that to contract terms. For example, if an online banking application is ramping up its usage of software resources, the bank can spot this well ahead of time, plan for it, and determine when they will approach a contract threshold that will require the purchase of more software.

Isogon technology will play a key role in IBM's IT service management strategy, IBM says, which is focused on automating and integrating IT processes throughout an enterprise. With IT service management, companies can manage IT processes across their organization the same way they manage business processes.

 "The combination of Isogon and IBM software will provide an end-to-end solution that will enable customers to plan for the future by managing all the software inventory, contracts and costs associated with an IT infrastructure. In addition, this acquisition demonstrates IBM's continued commitment to investing in the zSeries platform, as more enterprises take advantage of mainframe innovations such as infrastructure simplification and business resiliency," said Zollar.