IBM Acquires Encentuate, Sets Up Security Software Lab

March 24, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Last week, Big Blue snapped up another small software company to build out its portfolio of products, specifically aimed at improving the single sign-on (SSO) capabilities of its Tivoli security and access control products.

The company in question that IBM acquired is called Encentuate, which was founded by Peng Ong in 2001 after he took another company of his, called Interwoven, public. Interwoven is one of the big players in enterprise-grade content management systems, and is traded on the Nasdaq National Market. Before that, Peng was also a co-founder in a company called Electric Classifieds, which launched an online dating service called Match.com. Peng is obviously a serial entrepreneur–he was also present at the beginnings of database maker Sybase and object relational database maker Illustra (bought by Informix a decade ago and now part of IBM). Considering that he didn’t have the patience to finish his PhD, it is hard to believe that Peng will be able to stay at IBM unless Big Blue makes him the head of a software incubator and gives him some money to play with. (This might be one of the smartest things IBM could do.)

As part of the acquisition of Encentuate, IBM also announced that it was opening a security software lab in Singapore, which is not a coincidence since Peng is a native of that island nation that is a hot-bed of technology development and manufacturing. This lab will be an offshoot of the existing Encentuate development team, which was located in Singapore. Encentuate itself is located in Redwood City, California.

IBM did not provide financial details on the acquisition. The Encentuate products will be rolled into the Tivoli division of IBM’s Software Group.

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