As 451 group reported some weeks ago <here> and Forrester revoked <here> some days later, Run-Book-Automation and IT Process Automation leader Opalis is indeed sold to Microsoft, as it is announced on Technet.com Website <‘Microsoft Acquires Opalis Software’>.

You can also find some interesting reading from Opalis’ CEO Todd DeLaughter at the Opalis Blog <‘Opalis joins the Microsoft System Center product lineup’>.

Opalis will be combined with Microsofts System Center product line. More informationen about the acquisition can be retrieved <here>.

As if I knew it, it put the tag ‘rumors’ to my post from the Oct. the 23rd. Now I learned from from Glenn O’Donnell’s Forrester blog for Infrastructure and Operation professionals that this rumor did not become true, yet. From my point of view this would have been a great fit, because it MIcrosoft is gaining ground in the IT Management field and Opalis would be a perfect addition to SCOM. So we have to keep calm, and see what will happen. Maybe some time from now, we will know what was behind this rumor.

Read Glenn O’ Donnels blog for more information <LINK>.

The battle over Automation Software makers goes to the next round: This time in the spotlight, canadian Run-Book-Automation and Orchestration software maker Opalis <LINK>.

Opalis started several years ago with the Opalis Robot, a tool that helps to automate administrative tasks aka Job scheduling and Process Automation. Later they renamed the robot to ‘Opalis Integration Server‘, offering a very nice GUI and plenty of templates and ready made integration modules to a high variety of administratives software packages. After massivly ‘Cloudifying’ their offerings, Gartner elevated Opalis to not only beeing market leader, but also being able to provide RBA 2.0 capabilities <LINK>.

Through some strategic partnerships, like the  OEM-Deal with CA <LINK> Opalis was very successfull, so they were able to report appr. 100% increase in license sales for Q2 and Q3 2009 compared with last year. In April 2009 they annouced that they will partner with Microsoft and deliver an Orchestration and Intelligent Automation solution for Microsoft System Center <LINK>, which turned out to be a perfect match.

According to the 451 Group <LINK>, Opalis will be acquired by Microsoft for $60m, so after some quiet time the consolidation of the RBA (Run-Book-Automation) market is goining on.

It looks like Cisco was attracted by EMC announcements in the recent weeks to go for the cloud. Though this possible $45Bn deals is still a rumor, most commenters on this issue <LIKE_HERE> agree, that this deal makes sense for Cisco. After showing its muscels and the will to move to the Web 2.0 field with the acquisition of collaboration software maker WebEx <HAVEALOOK> finally starts off for the clouds. Let’s wait and see a new titan entering the ring.

Roland