Prior notification of a concentration (Case M.11468 – IBM / CERTAIN SOFTWARE AG PRODUCTS)
Date: 2024-05-29
Institutions: Directorate-General for Competition, European Commission
Subjects: cloud computing, consultancy, economic concentration, information technology industry, merger control, service








C_202403496EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/3496


29.5.2024






Prior notification of a concentration
(Case M.11468 – IBM / CERTAIN SOFTWARE AG PRODUCTS)
(Text with EEA relevance)
(C/2024/3496)


1.   
On 16 May 2024, the Commission received notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 and following a referral pursuant to Article 4(5) of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1).
This notification concerns the following undertakings:






—


International Business Machines Corporation (‘IBM’, US),










—


SAG Integration US LLC (the ‘Target’, US), a special purpose vehicle that will own the webMethods and StreamSets enterprise technology software businesses of Software Aktiengesellschaft (‘SAG’, Germany), controlled by Silver Lake Group, L.L.C. (US).




IBM will acquire within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation control of the whole of the Target.
The concentration is accomplished by way of contract or any other means.


2.   
The business activities of the undertakings concerned are the following:






—


IBM is active worldwide in the development, production, and marketing of a wide variety of IT solutions, namely enterprise IT software and systems (such as servers, storage systems, cloud, and cognitive offerings) and IT implementation services (such as business consulting and IT infrastructure services).










—


Target comprises SAG’s enterprise technology software webMethods and StreamSets, which will be carved out from SAG’s other product lines. webMethods is an integration and application programming interface management platform, which is deployed on-premises and in the cloud. StreamSets is a cloud-native data operations and data ingestion platform which allows enterprises to achieve access and delivery of data across a wide spectrum of data sources and types.






3.   

On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope of the Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved.



4.   
The Commission invites interested third parties to submit their possible observations on the proposed operation to the Commission.
Observations must reach the Commission not later than 10 days following the date of this publication. The following reference should always be specified:
M.11468 – IBM / CERTAIN SOFTWARE AG PRODUCTS
Observations can be sent to the Commission by email or by post. Please use the contact details below:
Email: COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu

Postal address:





European Commission




Directorate-General for Competition




Merger Registry




1049 Bruxelles/Brussel




BELGIQUE/BELGIË







(1)  
            OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1 (the ‘Merger Regulation’).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/3496/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)