webMethods to Buy Infravio for $38 Million

Published: September 14, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Infravio, a developer of Web services registry software, will be acquired by enterprise integration powerhouse webMethods for $38 million, the companies announced this week.

Infravio's software for using metadata to catalog and track Web services, which it called X-Registry, had hit a nerve in the growing market for service oriented architecture (SOA) tools since it was launched more than two years ago. Among companies already cranking out the Web services, they found difficulty in using existing tools to handle tasks such as authorization processes, service level agreements, and pricing structures, which is where the X-Registry fit in.

webMethods, already one of the leading vendors of traditional enterprise application integration (EAI) and next-generation enterprise service bus (ESB) technologies, expects the Infravio acquisition, combined with its recent acquisition of Cerebra, to kick its SOA initiative into overdrive. The Infravio technology will be used to round out two webMethods offerings, including Guided SOA Governance and Enterprise-scale SOA, the companies said.

"With the acquisition of Infravio, combined with our recent acquisition of Cerebra, we are demonstrating our commitment to doing SOA the right way--a way that actually addresses real market needs and challenges," said David Mitchell, president and CEO of webMethods, which is based in Fairfax, Virginia.

The companies expect the acquisition to be completed by the end of September, and the integration of their respective products by the end of December. More information is expected to be announced during webMethods annual user conference in November. It was uncertain what would become of Infravio's 65 employees, including 50 who work off-shore in India.

Infravio, which is based in Silicon Valley, is also a driving force behind the creation of a new "governance interoperability" organization called SOA Link, which was launched in May. SOA Link, which counted webMethods among its 15 or so founding members, seeks to help users choose a set of interoperable tools for building, executing, managing, and securing business applications in an SOA environment.

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