IBM, the world's biggest computer company, on Wednesday said it agreed to buy software developer Micromuse Inc for about $865 million. Micromuse shareholders will receive $10 a share, a premium of nearly 39 percent over the stock's closing price of $7.21 on Nasdaq stock market Tuesday.
Micromuse, whose shares rose to $9.89 on the Inet electronic trading system, sells software that banks, governments, retailers, telecommunications carriers and other large organisations use to monitor and manage computer networks.
The company's 1,800 customers include British Telecom, Deutsche Telecom, Fidelity Investments Services Ltd, NCR Corp, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and Virgin Atlantic.
The San Francisco-based company has developed a niche in software for managing computer systems that run video-on-demand, Internet telephone systems and other multimedia services that make networks difficult to manage. IBM said it expects the acquisition to close within 60 days.