Early June 2007…The IBM/Rational Software Developer Conference or RSDC for those in the know kicked off with two major acquisition announcements.

The first announcement made on June 6 was the acquisition of Watchfire. Watchfire is an application security company with a solid lineup of products and services that will fit well with and complement the Rational brand.

Application security is one of those things that everyone *knows* they should be doing but conveniently and blissfully ignores it. This is IBM’s opportunity to solidify its dominant position in the application lifecycle by offering a holistic focus on application security.

Watchfire technology and services is a natural fit in the application lifecycle. And, IBM with its broad enterprise reach is in a position to educate the market on and implement application security solutions.

And, just to show you how serious IBM is about the software lifecycle, IBM announced its intention to acquire Telelogic. This move will catapult IBM to the next level in the application lifecycle.

The Telelogic acquisition shows IBM is thinking about the future…the future of convergence around embedded software systems and traditional software applications.

Both of these acquisitions are big news coming out of the RSDC this week. These acquisitions are as hot as the weather in Orlando!

And, the RSDC keynote was hip. It highlighted a live performance from You Tube phenom Judson Laipply who performed his evolution of dance. Absolutely one of the most entertaining bits at a tech conference – ever! He performed everything from the twist to break dancing and even my favorite the Brady Bunch’s “Keep On” while wearing a t-shirt that said “Cheetoh’s”. This is truly a developer’s dream.
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