CA makes $375m Wily acquisition

CA has announced the $375m acquisition of privately held Wily Technology, a provider of application management solutions.

The deal kicks off 2006 in the same acquisitive mood in which CA spent much of 2005 and shows the company has little intention of slowing its buying spree under new management and its new moniker.

John Swainson, CEO of CA (formerly Computer Associates), said the purchase is a key deal in making good its intentions to define and dominate the enterprise IT management market.

Swainson said in a statement: "Application management is key to enabling customers to manage IT environments from end-to-end – from applications to infrastructure – and delivering on CA's Enterprise IT Management vision."

He added: "Wily is the leader in this sector and the fastest growing major company in a fast growing market. With this acquisition, CA will be the only company to address the management of applications, IT assets and users across all hardware and software, from the mainframe to the distributed environment."

The all-cash deal is expected to close within three months and CA has said it expects Wily to add around $72m in revenue to its 2007 figures, by which time Gartner predicts the application management market will be worth in excess of $1bn.