Companies have begun to expand their ALM portfolios in the past year, mostly through acquisitions of other application lifecycle management providers. Borland was acquired by Micro Focus, Rocket acquired Aldon and as of June 1, the acquisition of MKS by PTC, a product lifecycle management company, will be complete.

Bola Rotibi, research director at Creative Intellect Consulting, said it is a wise move for companies to bring application and product lifecycle management together, however, it could present challenges for other companies in the space.

"This shakes up IBM Rational and their past purchase of Telelogic," Rotibi said.

She added that product lifecycle management is more about the physical hardware and about bringing together a bill of materials. ALM, she noted, has been evolving and is more about governance.

"Software developers think of ALM as SDLC [software development lifecycle] and it is all about the management and maintenance of software products," Rotibi said.

A company to watch in the space, in Rotibi's opinion, is Serena software. She also said that some companies, like Siemens, are trying to build out their own ALM versions instead of acquiring other companies.

It appears to be all about selling into both markets for the companies that are acquiring ALM vendors at this point in time, Rotibi said.

What do you think? Do you, like Rotibi, think development is all about governance and management? Do you think these factors influence the acquisitions? Share your opinions with us.