Breaking news today is that BMC have purchased Neptuny for their Caplan software. The has been hailed in press releases and by many commentators as a move by BMC into Capacity Management... but hey... hang on! BMC purchased BGS back in 1998 for their Capacity Management software, did I just imagine that? I'm sure that the old Best/1 product became Perform/Predict and most recently BMC Capacity Trending Advisor, BMC Performance Reporting, BMC Capacity Management Essentials, and BMC Performance Assurance.
In its day, Best/1 was one of the best capacity management tools you could buy (although, to be fair, the market for real capacity management tools has never been particularly swamped). Now, only a decade (or so) later, BMC seem to have done it again. So was Best/1 not as good as it was thought to be? Maybe this is an admission from BMC that the world has moved on since the 90's? There is no surprise there. Cloud computing, virtualisation, Blades, Linux... all things have since been adopted with a passion by business. So if Best/1 is no longer the "best one" (sic), then who's fault is that? Surely the purchase of Neptuny by BMC is an admission that they have neglected their own Capacity Management tool and the rest of the world has overtaken them?
And if that is the case, then what future Caplan? Will BMC keep the required investment into R&D so that, this time, their tool maintains its position in the market? Will they instead, squander the legacy they have purchased and find that yet again, the rest of the market will overtake them?
Consider the BMC/Neptuny situation in conjunction with the CA/Hyperformix purchase of only one week ago. Hmmm. There appears to be some consolidation going on in the Capacity Management marketplace. So... what does the future hold for Teamquest and Metron? Watch this space.