Tibco Seen As Failed Target Of HP Acquisition

It’s common knowledge that Hewlett-Packard is looking to bolster its enterprise software portfolio, but you don’t often get wind of acquisitions until they’re done.

Reuters gave observers a peek behind the scenes on Tuesday, reporting that HP had recently taken a run at Tibco. The talks broke down about two weeks ago, according to two unidentified sources cited by Reuters and said to be close to the talks.

HP and Tibco told InformationWeek they couldn’t comment on the report (which one HP executive described as “rumor and speculation”). But the very mention of Tibco as a target speaks volumes about the kind of software HP is after. Tibco would quickly give HP enterprise-grade integration software used by big financial institutions including Citibank Asia, big airlines including Delta and Air France, and big energy and utility companies including ChevronTexaco.

Tibco has been an HP partner for integration and services-oriented architecture software for more than a decade. Tibco favors HP’s hardware platforms, particularly for Unix-based deployments of its software. Tibco product lines involved in the partnership include ActiveMatrix system integration, composite application development, and governance software; iProcess Suite business process management and optimization software; and Collaborative Information Manager master data management software.

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