Application delivery tools are the sleepers of technology compared to the weekly load of smart phones and tablets that are being released.
Yet without apps these devices are bricks. The ever-increasing pace of business also means enterprise applications are in demand. So it’s no surprise that development environments are also hot.
On Monday two big companies – IBM and CA Technologies – made acquisitions in the field.
IBM said it has bought UrbanCode, which makes the DevOps software development platform, while CA said it has bought Nolio Ltd., which makes a continuous application delivery solution named after the company, and is about to buy Vancouver’s Layer 7 Technologies, which makes application programming interface management and security solutions.
IBM said UrbanCode’s software is a natural extension of its strategy to simplify and speed software development and delivery for businesses. The new capabilities enhance IBM SmartCloud and MobileFirst initiatives for delivering software, the company said. It gave an example that by combining UrbanCode software with the MobileFirst Worklight technology businesses can will be able to author and deploy an application for any mobile device in hours. The UrbanCode solution also works with traditional applications including middleware, databases and business intelligence, IBM said.
“Companies that master effective software development and delivery in rapidly changing environments such as cloud, mobile and social will have a significant competitive advantage,” said Kristof Kloeckner, general manager, IBM Rational Software. “With the acquisition of UrbanCode, IBM is uniquely positioned to help businesses from every industry accelerate delivery of their products and services to better meet client demands.
Last month UrbanCode released uBuild, an enterprise-class build automation solution which the company said allows organizations to codify their best practices into build process templates.
Centralized builds allow users to collect metrics such as change tracking, test results, code coverage and overall analytics, the company said.
The build process templates are based on UrbanCode’s Anthill Pro build automation software.
CA buys Nolio
At its CA World conference, CA said Nolio brings continuous delivery capabilities to its service virtualization business.
Nolio capabilities have been incorporated in a new product in CA’s LISA application delivery suite. LISA Release Automation improves the ability to move application software through the development process and into production, the company said.
“Winning in today’s world of rapid agile development and complex hybrid infrastructures requires IT organizations to have automated application delivery processes and tools to deliver innovation to customers with perfection, and faster than the competition,” Shridhar Mittal, CA’s general manager for application delivery said in a statement.
“Building on our expertise in Service Virtualization—through both organic development and a targeted acquisition—we are driving efficiencies, cost savings and faster release cycles, and equally important, we are helping our customers achieve a truly optimized approach to DevOps.”
