Compuware to swallow site optimizer Gomez

Application management and testing firm Compuware on Wednesday said it will buy Web optimization company Gomez for $295 million in cash.

Compuware provides software and services to help its customers optimize the performance of their in-house applications. It typically delivers tools to manage server-based applications in the enterprise market. In recent years, Compuware has also generated sales by offering its tools via software as a service (SaaS), where it hosts or delivers software for its customers over the Internet.

Gomez helps businesses monitor and manage the performance of their Web sites and Web-based applications. The company looks at issues such as cross-browser compatibility and Web load balancing to ensure that a customer's Web site is fully optimized.

Like Compuware, Gomez also uses the SaaS model to deliver its product to the customer. With the addition of Gomez, Compuware said it expects to become the world's leading SaaS infrastructure management provider.

"Together, Compuware and Gomez provide the industry's only unified application performance management solution, spanning the enterprise and Internet," said Compuware President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Paul. "For business and IT executives who are moving more business-critical applications onto the Internet, Compuware can now offer unified visibility, isolation, and resolution of application performance problems from the data center to the customer."

Based in Detroit, Compuware has about 23,000 customers worldwide. It brought in sales of $1.1 billion for fiscal 2009. The company's 4,275 employees work out of 84 offices scattered across different countries.

With more than 2,500 customers around the world, Massachusetts-based Gomez saw revenue of $47 million in fiscal 2008. "Substantially all" of the privately held company's 272 employees, including the leadership team, are expected to remain with the organization, Compuware said.

"Compuware's financial strength, its R&D horsepower, and its geographic reach will benefit both our employees and our customers," said Richard Brekka, Gomez's chairman.

The deal is expected to close in November.