IBM acquires Green Hat as feather in its testing cap

MANHASSET, NY -- IBM has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Green Hat, a provider of software quality and testing solutions for the cloud and other environments. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

Green Hat is another feather in IBM’s software testing cap to help customers improve the quality of software applications by enabling developers to leverage cloud computing technologies to conduct testing on a software application prior to its delivery, according to IBM.

The transaction should enable the speed-up of testing software and hardware of severs used for cloud computing. Usually, to run simulation testing on a software program, a development team must construct an actual testing lab made up of both hardware and software. The time-consuming and labor-intensive process needs to keep up with the short development cycle of smartphones and tablets.

By using Green Hat’s solutions, IBM said it can set up a virtual test environment in a matter of minutes versus weeks, and for a fraction of the cost.  Green Hat creates a virtual environment that simulates a wide range of IT infrastructure elements, without the constraints of hardware or software services. This continuous test environment enables developers to test software earlier and more frequently throughout the software development life cycle.

In a 2002 National Institute of Standards and Technology report “The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Infrastructure for Software Testing” a survey of CAD/CAM/CAE vendors reported “software testing is still more of an art than a science, and testing methods and resources are selected based on the expert judgment of senior staff.”

Software management companies like IBM are always looking to acquire companies with ready-made solutions in the testing space.

According to IBM, its customers often spend up to 50 percent of their development resources on testing; 30 percent of which is spent managing the complexity of the test environment itself.

Upon the acquisition close, Green Hat will join IBM’s Rational Software business. IBM's Software Group has made more than 70 acquisitions since 2003, including eight in 2011.  

Green Hat has a range of customers including those in financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, transportation and the energy industry.  It was founded in 1996 and is jointly headquartered in London, England and Wilmington, Delaware.