IBM gets Rational

By Alun Williams

Posted on 24 Feb 2003 at 15:36

IBM has officially completed its acquisition of Rational, the software development tools company.

Following the EU's seal of approval for the merger on Thursday, IBM has officially completed its $2.1bn acquisition of Rational, the software development tools company. Rational will now exist as a division with the IBM Software Group.

'Rational is an important element of our e-business on demand initiative,' said Steve Mills, senior VP at the IBM Software Group. 'Rational's complete, open software development platform can improve the speed, quality and predictability of software projects.'

The company is well known to software developers. As well as Rational Rose, its design modelling tool, it is best known for its Purify runtime error detection system, and ClearCase, for software configurarion mangement.

Rational will be integrated as the fifth brand of IBM's Software Group, joining WebSphere, DB2, Lotus and Tivoli.

The takeover was first proposed in 6 December 2002 and Rational shareholders gave their approval for the acquisition back in 22 January. Now, regulatory approval processes have been completed.