News

Serena buys TeamShare to enhance ECM product

• By Rich Seeley
• June 4, 2003

Enterprise change management (ECM) vendor Serena Software Inc. (www.serena.com), San Mateo, Calif., has announced that it is purchasing Colorado Springs, Colo.-based TeamShare Inc., which markets an application request management system.

Serena began integrating TeamShare's TeamTrack into its ChangeMan ECM system in January based on a request from a customer using both products, said a Serena spokesperson.

TeamTrack is frequently deployed on the business side of an enterprise where a request for an application change may be generated, said Evan Ellis, Serena's senior vice president of worldwide operations. In the case of the mutual customer who proposed the software marriage in January, TeamTrack was being used in the help desk where support personnel could request an application change in response to problems encountered by end users.

When Serena executives saw how well the TeamShare product integrated with their ECM system, they decided to buy the company, secure in the knowledge that the products were already working together, said Ellis.

Linking departmental users to IT is a crucial next step in ECM, said Ellis, noting that the combined products offer the capability "to really tie your IT applications closer to the needs of the business.

"That's fundamental because typically, it's the business making requests that make their way into applications that the IT department has to deliver," he said. "A very strong request management system with process flow is critical to linking IT with the needs of business users."

Serena, which will pay $18 million in cash for all of privately held TeamShare's outstanding capital stock, plans to maintain TeamShare's offices in Colorado Springs, Ellis said.