IBM to offload some software products in US$1.8b deal

IBM said this week it will sell some of its software products business to Indian software services exporter HCL Technologies for US$1.8 billion.

The software products in scope represent a total addressable market of more than US$50 billion, IBM said in a statement.

The company will divest seven of its products, including its secure device management product BigFix, marketing automation product Unica and workstream collaboration product Connections.

"The products that we are acquiring are in large growing market areas like security, marketing and commerce which are strategic segments for HCL," said C Vijayakumar, chief executive of HCL.

The transaction is expected to close by mid-2019.

IBM's software sales, which have slowed down in the past, also weighed on its latest quarterly revenue.

HCL's revenue from software services business, however, rose about 21 percent to 87.11 billion rupees ($1.7 billion), leading the company to beat its second-quarter profit.

IBM is also in the process of buying US software company Red Hat for US$34 billion, including debt.

(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)