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Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

HP readies a software move, reportedly eyed Tibco

By | April 12, 2011, 8:07am PDT

Hewlett-Packard appears to be getting an itchy trigger finger when it comes to pulling off a big software deal.

Reuters is reporting that HP held talks to buy Tibco, an enterprise software company with a focus on messaging. Tibco would a bevy of financial services customers and projects like tibbr, which is a spin on enterprise social networking.

Tibco is a regular in the takeover target chatter, but would be an interesting fit with HP. Leo Apotheker, HP’s CEO, is betting that software will be the “glue” of the company, which is also focusing on cloud computing. Tibco focuses on real-time infrastructure including business integration, process management and optimization and is built on services oriented architecture.

As part of HP, Tibco would also help Apotheker’s plan to focus on verticals. Tibco’s strongest vertical is financial services but its products extend to healthcare, utilities, telecom, manufacturing and retail.

Meanwhile, Tibco would bring some growth to HP’s software table. The company has been reporting solid quarters and its first quarter results were better than expected. In the first quarter, Tibco reported non-GAAP earnings of 16 cents a share on revenue of $185.3 billion. For fiscal 2011, Tibco is expected to deliver net income of $156.6 million on revenue of $864.1 million. Tibco executives also noted that the company’s pipeline was the strongest seen.

Despite those results, some analysts maintain neutral ratings on Tibco because they view shares as pricey. The upshot is Tibco probably wanted more than HP was willing to pay.

Related:

HP plans to create software hub in Bay Area

Tibco launches low latency messaging system

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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Someone please proofread what is written:
"Tibco would a bevy of financial services customers and projects like tibbr, which is a spin on enterprise social networking."

Would a what? Would bring?
"HP readies a software move, reportedly eyed Tibco" (eyes) as they are rumored to be in talks to buy, not just had a passing interest.
Too many edits? reported as SPAM?

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