IBM completes Rational acquisition

IBM Corporation has announced the completion of its $2.1 billion acquisition of Rational Software Corporation. The acquisition, announced on December 6, 2002, was completed before the US market opened on Friday last.

In India, Rational Software has offices across six locations including the metro cities. MK Bharatee, who previously was heading Rational's business in India, is the Country Manager of the new division. Rational provides open, industry standard tools, best practices and services for developing business applications and building software products and systems, including embedded software for devices such as cell phones and medical systems.

"Rational is an important element of our e-business on demand initiative," said Steve Mills, Sr VP and Group Executive, IBM Software Group. "Rational´s complete, open software development platform can improve the speed, quality and predictability of software projects. It s a perfect complement to our existing four brands WebSphere, DB2, Lotus and Tivoli," he added.

Rational, with customers in 89 countries and more than 3,400 employees, estimates that more than 6,00,000 software developers use its software tools. Rational operates in 10 countries in Asia and has more than 350 employees. Rational will be integrated into IBM as the fifth brand of IBM Software Group, a $13 billion business in 2002.