ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010029
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ARMONK, N.Y.
SOURCE: Bloomberg Business News
International Business Machines Corp. agreed to buy software maker Tivoli Systems Inc. for $743 million as Big Blue shifts its focus to the flourishing field of network computing.
IBM will pay Tivoli shareholders $47.50 a share in cash in a tender offer to begin shortly.
The acquisition gives IBM, the world's biggest software company with $12.7 billion in annual sales, the same strength in managing networks of computers that it has in its traditional business of running mainframes.
``IBM has concluded they needed this for network-centric computing,'' said analyst Gary Helmig of SoundView Financial Group. ``They have the opportunity to make it a de facto standard around the world.''
Tivoli shares rose 9 9/32 to 47 1/32 in trading of 2.43 million shares, nearly 20 times the three-month average daily volume. IBM shares were down 1/8 at 108 1/2.
Tivoli's software, which many IBM rivals have agreed to use as an industry standard, helps link and manage networks of machines that don't speak the same language.
LENGTH: Short : 32 linesby CNB