UNICOM Acquires ITSM and z/OS Software Companies

Published: October 17, 2011

by Alex Woodie

UNICOM Systems made two separate acquisition deals last month, including the purchase of iET Solutions, a developer of IT service management software (ITSM) aimed at helping companies achieve ITIL compliance, and illustro Systems International, a developer of mainframe utilities for z/OS and z/VSE shops.

In early September, Mission Hills, California-based UNICOM bought illustro, a Dallas, Texas-based company that develops a range of software primarily aimed at IBM System z mainframe community, including z/OS and z/VSE shops. The company's flagship product is a Web-enablement suite called z/Ware that transforms the 3270 datastream into XML and HTML. The company also sells a TCP/IP monitoring tool called z/IPMon; an encryption tool called z/Encrypt; and an SSL appliance called iCYA.

The company also sells an auditing and compliance tool called iKnow that captures and archives all the 3270 and 5250 screens of users. iKnow is based on technology that illustro OEMed from the Israeli security software company Intellinx.

UNICOM CEO Corry Hong praised illustro's "innovative products" and "exciting technology," and called the privately held company's professional services team "experienced." "This is good news for our customers and the mainframe community," he says in a press release.

The deal for iET Solutions, which was owned by Platinum Equity, arguably will have a bigger impact on UNICOM's installed base of IBM i change management customers, obtained with its 2006 acquisition of SoftLanding Systems.

iET Solutions develops IT service management (ITSM) solutions that help customers obtain and maintain compliance with IT standards such as ITIL. The company's ITSM suite includes a host of modules aimed at automating various aspects of running an IT department as a service, including: incident response, problem management, change management, asset and configuration management, request fulfillment management, knowledge management, service level management, catalog management, event management, and availability management.

All of iET's solutions can access an underlying configuration management database (CMDB). Other iET solutions sold around the ITSM and CMDB include a self-service Web portal, a process management and analysis solution, and mobile and phone-based interfaces into the ITSM. The iET offerings can be run in-house or accessed as a service over the Internet.

"iET's ITSM solutions are the best-of-breed in part because of their certification by the UK OGC, the founder of ITIL, as well as their smartphone capabilities," Hong says in a press release. "This is a strategic move for UNICOM, and good news for our existing Eden ITPowerPac customers, and the ITSM community."

iET Solutions was formed in 2003 when Platinum Equity bought the CRM and service management software assets from Applix, which wanted to be a pure-play analytics company with its TM1 business intelligence software that's now part of IBM-Cognos). Platinum used those Applix assets to form iET. Today, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company has more than 51,000 customers in 26 countries, according to the iET Solutions website. iET also provides ITIL training and professional services through its offices in the US, the UK, and Germany.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed by UNICOM.

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