The battle for the System i high availability market took yet another unexpected twist yesterday when IBM announced that it intended to purchase DataMirror for around $161 million.

DataMirror was one of the original ‘big three’ System i high availability (HA) vendors along with Lakeview and Vision Solutions. Lakeview and Vision have now been merged along with second tier HA provider iTera, under the aegis of American private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo, leaving New Zealand’s Maximum Availability and French firm Traders as the only independent companies in this particular market sector.

However, IBM does not make a habit of buying up third-party application providers that complement its hardware products, so a question mark must hang over the DataMirror acquisition. Although IBM sources were unable to confirm or deny speculation surrounding the deal today, it would seem that DataMirror’s HA business had little to do with the proposed purchase.

The company also provides real-time data integration and Java database solutions -- its Transformation Server product being the best example -- and it would seem that this is the type of technology that IBM is most keen to take on board.

Indeed, there was no mention of DataMirror’s HA offerings in the statement IBM put out yesterday to announce the deal.

"Organisations need the ability to capture and use information in real-time to help them make better business decisions, better serve their customers and increase operational efficiencies," said Ambuj Goyal, general manager, IBM Information Management. "The combination of DataMirror technology and IBM information management software will help customers bring real-time data analysis closer to actual business processes, allowing them to be more competitive and to generate more value from their information."

"IBM's global reach and industry leading integration solutions will rapidly expand the impact of DataMirror software," said Nigel Stokes, chief executive officer and founder, DataMirror. "This transaction represents a validation of the hard work of the DataMirror team over the last ten years, and an opportunity for our customers to continue to leverage our unique solutions."

Indeed, the lack of HA focus would seem to be borne out by IBM’s future plans for DataMirror. It intends to integrate DataMirror with IBM's Information Management Software unit led by Goyal and employ DataMirror software to support IBM Information Server, IBM's information integration platform.

Seamus Quinn, editor.