Quest Software keen on acquisition

Enterprise systems management supplier and product development company Quest Software Inc is looking at taking its Indian operations into the next level of growth via the inorganic mode. The company is looking at acquiring a product company in the target range of $50 million - $200 million, Quest Software managing director — India sub-continent Krishnan Thyagarajan said.

“We are looking at acquiring at a company with some good IPs and specialising in either traditional systems development and services or the virtualisation realm where we want to ramp up faster,” Thyagarajan said.

Aliso Viejo, California-based Quest recently acquired the technology assets of US-based storage resource management startup MonoSphere Inc for an undisclosed sum. “We have been working on boosting the performance and productivity of applications, databases, Windows infrastructure and virtual environments by developing bespoke applications in .NET and Java environments. Another growing application area is in the field of VDIs (Virtual Desktop Interfaces),” Thyagarajan said.

Quest’s flagship product, christened ‘Toad’, is an application development tool running atop the Oracle database. Toad has 150,000 users in India alone.

Quest has developed a family of migration platforms for enterprise users who have to switch between different platforms while working. Last week, the Nasdaq-listed company launched a new migration solution called Coexistence Manager for Notes, which enables both IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange Server to be used simultaneously without disrupting end-user activities.

The $90-million buyout of Windows toolmaker Scriptlogic and the $78 million acquisition of Windows optimisation tool developer Netpro rank among Quest’s acquisitions last year. The company has a market capitalisation of about $1.38 billion.

With 3,500 people on its rolls worldwide, Quest Software posted revenues of $631 million in 2007. Expected revenues are $650 million - $700 million in 2008 and $750 million - $800 million by 2009. Quest currently has a presence in Mumbai and Bangalore, with plans to open operations in New Delhi by the second quarter of 2009.