Paul Krill
Editor at Large

IBM eyes embedded systems

news
Jun 11, 20072 mins

With its planned acquisition of Telelogic, IBM is looking to make a splash in the embedded systems development space, a high-ranking IBM official acknowledged on Monday morning.

Telelogic has specialized in enterprise lifecycle requirements management tools for markets such as aerospace, automotive and defense. IBM’s Daniel Sabbah, general manager of IBM Rational Software, noted Telelogic capabilities for embedded systems development.

“Part of the reason why we’re acquiring Telelogic is because we believe that the embedded systems space is growing,” Sabbah said. Also, the Telelogic buy will help bolster product and system development from the requirements management stage through to implementation, he said.

“Telelogic marries the demands of enterprise and government customers with business objectives to drive the development of products, applications, complex systems and software,” Sabbah said.

“IBM’s acquisition of Telelogic serves to accelerate the innovation of products that rely on software. This space includes industries such as consumer electronics, medical systems, automotive and aerospace and defense,” said Sabbah. Telelogic customers have included organizations such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

“Software development is providing innovation in products we use everyday, from phones to cars to airplanes. Together, IBM, Telelogic and our business partners will expand and, more important, accelerate our customers’ ability to define, model, build, test, deliver and govern the development,” of complex systems, Sabbah said.

IBM’s move was called “not surprising, given how hungry IBM has been to reestablish itself in the systems development [space],” said Carey Schwaber, senior analyst at Forrester Research. But she cited a high degree of overlap between the two companies.

“It is certainly on the complicated side though, given the number of areas in which IBM Rational and Telelogic both have capabilities,” Schwaber said. “I count modeling, requirements management, software change and configuration management and project portfolio management a bit, too. The only area where Telelogic has a tool that IBM doesn’t is enterprise architecture.”

The Telelogic acquisition was the fifth made by the IBM Rational division since IBM acquired Rational itself in 2003, Sabbah said. The division bought Watchfire, for Web application security, last week. Telelogic will be a business line within The IBM Rational software unit.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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