In a surprise move, AT&T today said it will sell its Sterling Commerce business-to-business and supply chain software unit to IBM for $1.4 billion in cash.
The deal, expected to close in the second half of this year, continues IBM’s push to grow its software business through acquisitions. It also moves Sterling to a more strategically suitable parent, experts said.
“While AT&T did provide Sterling Commerce with tremendous autonomy, synergies were limited to channel sales and hosting,” wrote Altimeter Group analyst Ray Wang in an analysis of the deal today. “In fact,” he continued, “Sterling Commerce played a minor role in the overall AT&T strategy … IBM makes more sense as a home for Sterling Commerce and as a partner to AT&T.”
Sterling and its 2,500 employees will be integrated into the WebSphere business unit within IBM’s Software Group. There, IBM will create new cross-channel products that take advantage of the WebSphere middleware, including its business process management and SOA tools, as well as its cloud computing offerings, officials said.