IBM buys Vallent

IBM today announced it has agreed to acquire Vallent Corporation, a privately-held supplier of network performance monitoring and service management software for wireless service providers.

Financial details of the Bellevue, Washington-based firm with more than 400 employees were not disclosed. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and is anticipated to close in the first quarter of the 2007 calendar year.

Vallent’s software is designed to help service providers manage the performance of their network infrastructure by monitoring and reporting problem areas such as dropped calls and traffic bottlenecks. It also supplies wireless networking monitoring technology.

Following completion of the acquisition, IBM’s intent is to integrate Vallent into IBM’s Software Group as a part of its Tivoli Software unit, the same unit into which the Netcool assets from IBM’s February, 2006 Micromuse acquisition have been integrated.

“Today’s service provider landscape is changing dramatically,” said Al Zollar, general manager, IBM Tivoli software.

“Mergers, partnerships, and technology are making fixed-mobile convergence a reality. To compete, operators must manage the customer experience across large, heterogeneous, and complex service delivery infrastructures."