Sun Microsystems is to acquire middleware firm SeeBeyond for $387 million in cash.
SeeBeyond had revenues of approximately $167 million in the past 12 months and 2000 customers worldwide.
Sun will acquire SeeBeyond's stock at a price of $4.25 per share, five cents above the firm's 52-week high and almost a dollar above yesterday's close. In pre-market trading SeeBeyond's shares had gained 85 cents to $4.13. Sun stock edged up two cents to $3.71.
Sun says the acquisition will strengthen its position in the growing enterprise-wide market for service oriented architectures (SOA). The two companies established a marketing partnership in October 2004 aimed at integrating Sun's Java Enterprise System with SeeBeyond's Ican middleware suite.
At the SIA show in New York last week, SeeBeyond showcased its Financial Services Service-Oriented Architecture (SeeBeyond FS-SOA) offering in a joint presentation with Sun, highlighting an end-to-end trade flow monitoring solution addressing operational risk management, near-time reconciliation and audit and compliance support. The platform used SeeBeyond's application integration suite and Sun's portal and identity management technology to deliver a dashboard-style interface to core financial trading transactions.
Commenting on the acquisition, Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer, Sun Microsystems, says: "Our recent acquisition activity reinforces our strategy to be a consolidator of innovations in the IT industry and underscores our commitment to heterogeneity. The next wave is about the integration of business systems and today's acquisition of SeeBeyond signifies an early and forceful move to establish a leadership position in this space."