HP Acquires TruLogica to Build Up Infrastructure Strategy

Hewlett-Packard Co. on Thursday said it has agreed to acquire TruLogica Inc., the latest in HP's buying spree to build out its strategy of providing an IT management system built on emerging software infrastructure standards.

TruLogica, a privately held identity management software vendor, is expected to become a part of HP's Software Global Business Unit. The Dallas-based company's flagship Concero product would be sold through HP's sales channels for OpenView, the Palo Alto, Calif., company's product line for managing IT hardware, software and networks.

The deal is expected to close within 30 days. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Recent acquisitions show HP is buying infrastructure technology that would help customers move to service-oriented architectures, the latest buzzword for what proponents say is the next-generation of distributed computing.

Using SOA technologies and standards, a company would be able to expose applications on a network as "services," which means other software can integrate with those applications using standardized technology for communications, security and management.The architecture, which leverages emerging web services standards, is expected to be particularly useful in connecting business systems across the Internet, so companies can more easily share data with suppliers and customers.

The concept, however, is still in the beginning stages, with between 5 percent and 10 percent of large enterprises testing various technologies, according to market researcher ZapThink LLC.

"A lot of these announcements that HP is making are still well in advance of what customers will actually be using," ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg said. "This is a long-term strategy for HP in building their adaptive enterprise technology."

"Adaptive enterprise" is the marketing term HP uses to describe its move toward SOA technology. Competitors IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. call their similar strategies "On Demand" and "N1," respectively.

In September, HP purchased San Francisco-based Talking Blocks, which gave it the systems management infrastructure for SOAs, Bloomberg said. Other companies recently acquired by HP to build out its adaptive-enterprise strategy include Novadigm Inc., Consera Software, Persist Technologies and Baltimore Technologies' Select Access business.The latter acquisition gave HP technology for federated identity management, which essentially means being able to provide network users with access to multiple applications with one user ID and password.

TruLogica provides tools for building a model that attaches all the applications and business processes associated with specific groups of employees. So, for example, a new sales employee could be added as a network user, and automatically get access to all sales-related software. In addition, email alerts could be sent to a facilities department, which may have to provide the worker with a desk and telephone.

Because TruLogica is built around emerging SOA standards, the software can be integrated with Select Access and Talking Blocks, HP officials said.

Major companies testing SOA technologies include Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Boeing Co. and Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Bloomberg said.