Big Blue snaps up BuildForge

IBM has announced the acquisition of BuildForge for an undisclosed sum.

BuildForge offers an application that automates software development while ensuring that projects meet audit and compliance requirements by tracking the software's creation, development and deployment.

The need to audit software development projects is driven by the trend toward globalisation as well as increased time pressures, IBM claimed.

Big Blue plans to integrate the BuildForge tools with its Rational Software development tools.

"The acquisition of BuildForge will ultimately help customers more effectively govern their software and systems development," said Danny Sabbah, general manager for IBM's Rational Software.

"BuildForge closes the gap between writing code, building an application and releasing it into production."

BuildForge was founded in 2001. The company relied heavily on IBM's Rational products, with 80 per cent of its customers using the IBM developer tools.