Acquisition Signals Move into Enterprise Systems Management

The recent acquisition of Engyro boosts Microsoft’s quest to transform Operations Manager—the company’s product for monitoring the health of Windows-based computers, OS services, and applications—into a platform for monitoring heterogeneous IT environments. Engyro’s products allow Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 and Operations Manager (OM) 2007 to monitor a variety of non-Windows OSs and applications, and integrate MOM 2005 and OM 2007 with other system management products. However, this move comes as a blow to partners selling products that compete with Engyro’s and portends a battle between Microsoft and major enterprise system management (ESM) vendors, such as BMC and IBM.

As with Microsoft’s acquisitions of Connectix (Virtual PC/Virtual Server), Sybari (Antigen), and Softricity (SoftGrid), the Engyro acquisition shows how Microsoft is not afraid to disrupt partners serving a particular niche in the Windows marketplace by picking a “winner.”