IBM has announced the closing of its acquisition of Lombardi, a privately held software company based in Austin, Texas. Lombardi, a leading provider of Business Process Management (BPM) software and services, helps organizations automate and integrate business processes to increase efficiencies and reduce costs.

The closing comes less than six weeks after IBM's December 16th announcement that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Lombardi. 

Lombardi will become part of the IBM's application integration software portfolio, an expanding area of IBM software that grew 13 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Consistent with IBM's software strategy, IBM expects that investments by Lombardi clients and partners in existing IBM and Lombardi technologies will be preserved, allowing customers to take advantage of the broader set of capabilities without the need to replace existing systems. Lombardi employees will join IBM. 

"IBM anticipates that 2010 will be the year in which business process management goes mainstream as more customers realize the critical role this area plays in the success of their organizations," said Craig Hayman, general manager, IBM Application and Integration Middleware. "With Lombardi now part of the IBM family, we look forward to taking our strengthened capabilities to the marketplace and delivering business transformation to our customers." 

Business processes are the backbone of every organization and enable the smooth and timely completion of everything from insurance claims to bank loans and hospital admissions. Lombardi adds a new dimension to IBM's enterprise-wide BPM capabilities by giving organizations the ability to quickly adjust their business processes to support sudden and changing needs, especially those that rely heavily on collaboration to complete a task or project. Lombardi strengthens IBM's capabilities in automating these processes, while empowering managers at the department level to change already running processes on the fly, eliminating the need for complicated and time-consuming technical intervention. 

According to IDC, the market opportunity for BPM software will increase at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 15 percent over the next four years, from $1.7B in 2009 to $3.0B by 2013. (1) 

The announcement reinforces IBM's commitment and investments in BPM and service oriented architecture (SOA). With an SOA community of more than 8,000 clients and 7,400 Business Partners, and a BPM community of 5,000 clients and 2,500 Business Partners, IBM continues to build on its leadership, which has been recognized by leading independent analyst firms. 

According to Gartner, IBM is the industry's leading provider of middleware (2). 

For more information on all of the new products and services or for details on how IBM is helping clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster decisions by using BPM and SOA, visit: www.ibm.com/smartwork/businessagility.