Get 'em while they're hot: another SOA vendor scoffed up

This morning, Mercury Interactive, which specializes in "business technology optimization" software -- especially testing tools -- announced it was buying SOA vendor Systinet for a cool $105 million.

Systinet has been very active in promoting governance in SOA development, particularly around its UDDI-based registry software, which enables developers and users to quickly identify and validate reusable services.  Systinet has had quite a few nice deals lately, including an implementation with the US Air Force and a integration arrangement with Oracle.

This is a natural progression within any market, where smaller vendors take the risks to run with new ideas and build new markets, then become attractive acquisition targets for larger players. This acquisition, along with IBM's acquisition of XML appliance supplier Datapower last fall, points to the inevitable consolidation occurring within the Web services and SOA space.