Hyperformix was acquired by CA

Hyperformix was acquired by CA. Hyperformix was one of the leading companies providing capacity planning/management solutions based on mathematical modeling. They probably had the best product for Software Performance Engineering. They probably did the best job integrating modeling/capacity planning with load testing (and LoadRunner in particular). Once upon a time Hyperformix Performance Optimizer was also marketed as Mercury Capacity Planning.

I believe that this is the first acquisition in this area since BGS was acquired by BMC in 1998 with then the leading BEST/1 product (now, I guess, BMC Capacity Management).

It is interesting that modeling (capacity management based on the true modeling) remained an area with small player for a long time. In addition to Hyperformix and BMC, it is possible to mention TeamQuest, Metron, OPNET, and BEZ Systems. It is especially interesting because large players (like IBM, Oracle, HP, and Microsoft) don’t have any real modeling solutions in their portfolio (some products may have trending/forecasting features, but I haven’t heard about anything more sophisticated). But with high-tech buying spree around, this area surprisingly remained untouched.

I was also surprised that it was CA who acquired Hyperformix. As far as I understand, CA is not known for investing too much in the acquired companies. Looks like they put more stress on capacity management. So I am afraid that most interesting features of Hyperformix (in my opinion, of course) like using for new system modeling (Software Performance Engineering) and integration with load testing may be lost.

Andrew says:

November 5, 2010 at 5:11 am

Alex
I have to admit I tend to agree with your assessment that CA will have not purchased Hyperformix for its Software Performance Engineering (SPE) products but for their capacity planning capability particularly in the cloud space.

Interestingly, there has also been another recent acquisition with BMC buying the Neptuny product specifically for the virtualization and Cloud management capability. (http://www.neptuny.com/bmc-software-extends-leadership-in-virtualization-and-cloud-management-with-acquisition-of-neptuny%e2%80%99s-software-business)

I hope CA see the potential of the Hyperfomix SPE products and promote them. Time will tell.

Robert Limbrey says:

November 5, 2010 at 11:31 am

You can be assured that CA will take the Hyperformix CM product and integrate that into their cloud offering (indeed have already announced their positioning on the same – see the CIO website for more). The performance engineering tools were good but never sold well – and required expertise and investment that were beyond most organisations. Ultimately it comes down to money – the cloud marketplace is hot right now – and with this acquisition, CA are addressing the gap that Gartner rightly identify – how to manage the cloud. From this perspective the Hyperformix acquisition – and more so, the Neptuny acquisition – put CA and BMC front of market.

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