MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Veritas Software Corp. completed its acquisition of Precise Software Solutions on Monday, consummating a high-tech courtship that began before the industry's recent flurry of marriage proposals.
Mountain View-based Veritas, a maker of storage software products, paid $609 million in cash and stock for Westwood, Mass.-based Precise Software, which provides tools to help businesses get more out of their applications software.
The final price tag was slightly higher than the estimated cost of $537 million when the two companies first agreed to merge in December.
Since Veritas and Precise announced their engagement, several other high-tech unions have been proposed, including Oracle Corp.'s $6.3 billion hostile bid for rival business software maker PeopleSoft Inc.
Veritas CEO Gary Bloom, a former Oracle executive, expects the wave of consolidation to continue. Business decision makers "continue to tell us that they want to deal with a smaller number of big vendors that offer a broader ranges of solutions," Bloom said in an interview Monday.
Veritas, one of the world's largest software makers with annual revenue of $1.5 billion, remains on the prowl for other takeover targets, Bloom said. With the Precise Software acquisition, Veritas picks up about $80 million in annual revenue and 450 employees.
Veritas shares were up 25 cents to close at $28.82 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
