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The quantity of quality (management software vendors) is shrinking

Michael Warrilow By: Michael Warrilow
Published: 29th June 2009
Copyright © 2009

As you may (or may not know), in May of this year, Micro Focus announced its intent to acquire two of the remaining enterprise QA / testing software companies. In doing so, it seems to have subsequently begun a somewhat mild bidding war for Borland. Current bidding levels means they'd get change from US$100M. What's more, Micro Focus officially purchased Compuware's testing / quality business unit for US$58M at the start of June 2009. These are (relative) bargain prices.

Whatever way this plays out, it will likely result in a QA / testing software market that is (even more strongly) dominated by HP, thanks to its acquisition of Mercury in 2006. Market research shows that the HP testing tools dominate the enterprise test / QA software market, undoubtedly. The only other remaining players include IBM/Rational and ... er ... umm ... let me think ... anyone ... MKS and Microsoft, maybe? The market has consolidated almost to the point of being a monopoly, or perhaps duopoly, imho.

It will be interesting to watch the outcome from the current bidding war for Borland. It's likely IBM is now in the race, which means HP will likely have to respond. Other than that, and being (overly) optimistic, perhaps there's a new entrant that will shake things up. Otherwise, the inevitable result is further concentration among the established market (share) leaders.

It's yet another small indicator of the current trend toward mega-vendors and monolithic stacks in enterprise computing, imho.

Reader Comments

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6th July 2009: 'Rolf Frydenberg' said:

I agree that the number of vendors in this market is now close to - or actually below - the minimum number for the market to function. In most markets, this is a signal that a new approach will arrive - from left field. Because monopolistic markets (that are not supported by government intervention) are not stable.

I think we'll see a paradigm shift in this market, e.g. coming out of the many cloud computing or SaaS initiatives that abound. And even though the traditional management software vendors will try to dominate these markets as well, there are plenty opportunities for new players that build noew solutions from the ground up.

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7th July 2009: 'Michael Warrilow' said:

Let's hope so Rolf (i.e., that the current situation ultimately spurs new and innovative approaches to test / QA software).

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