Rational Software’s Australian office and New Zealand user Peace Software take a positive view of Rational’s takeover by IBM, announced last week.
Inquiries to Rational NZ were referred to Sydney-based marketing manager Mark McLaughlin, who says it is “exceedingly unlikely” that IBM will lay off any Rational staff in this part of the world. “They’re buying our business, and they’ll need the people to do it,” he says.
He points to IBM’s previous acquisition of Lotus and Tivoli, which have preserved a good deal of their own identity and personnel. “IBM tends to keep [such acquired companies] separate.”
The main change will be synergy between the companies, he says, and access to IBM resources.
David Moles, director of technology engineering at Peace Software, says the takeover represents a combination and strengthening of two existing Peace partners. IBM plays a part in implementation of Peace’s energy utility software, and is assisting in the wider spread of its marketing internationally, notably in Europe.
IBM’s WebSphere is part of the infrastructure of Peace’s software, and Rational is crucial to its software development life-cycle, Moles says, so the bringing together of the two is a positive move.
Despite a laudatory article on Terabyte's use of Rational software on the latter's website, managing director Rowan Schaaf says the company only uses Rational tools for occasional projects, the last "some time ago".
"They're not on our radar any more," he says.