Flexera Snags RightScale, Bringing Public Cloud Into Its Asset Management Portfolio

Flexera has acquired Rightscale, the company said Wednesday, in a deal aimed at rounding out its asset management portfolio with cloud management and cost optimization products.

Flexera, based in Chicago, offers solutions for keeping a handle on the hardware, licensed software and Software-as-a-Service resources enterprises are procuring at a breakneck pace.

"The last frontier for us was we needed the capability to go to our customers and understand what was being used in a public and hybrid scenario," Jim Ryan, Flexera's CEO, told CRN.

[Related: Flexera Acquires Secunia To Create One-Stop Shop For Software Licensing, Vulnerability Management]

Flexera, owned by private equity firm TA Associates and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, did not disclose the cost or terms of the deal that closed Tuesday, when an internal announcement was made at both companies.

RightScale, based in Santa Barbara, Calif., offers a popular cloud cost optimization solution called Optima and a broader cloud management platform.

Optima falls "right down the middle of our core management proposition," Ryan said. "It's not enough to just point out a bill and say you're overspending. We find its essential to also give our customers the capability to take action and remediate things in their environment where they actually save money."

As enterprises increasingly struggle to maintain a grip on the sprawl of technologies they purchase or subscribe to, on-premises and cloud asset management solutions are increasingly in demand.

"The physical is easy to track down," Ryan said. "Virtual and software is harder to find. They can't touch it and feel it and know how much is being consumed at any one time."

Customers want a holistic solution across those diverse assets that incorporates governance and spending controls, he said.

Flexera leans heavily on partners to implement that strategy, its CEO told CRN, looking to drive services revenue through systems integrators and managed services providers.

MSPs play an increasingly important role, as many customers aren't looking to simply purchase software, but instead a business outcome, Ryan said.

Beyond its acquisition strategy, Flexera is investing in its channel.

"That growth is outstripping the direct area of our business," Ryan said.

With RightScale under its roof, Flexera will lean even more on partners.

"Certainly, in public cloud management, that's an opportunity that's very channel-friendly in a sense that we're solving big problems, and hopefully [creating] big opportunities for our channel partners," Ryan said.

Kim Weins, vice president of product and marketing at RightScale, said the cloud management vendor has been particularly focused over the last year in upgrading its policy management capabilities.

RightScale recently expanded and revamped the policy engine that allows customers to set goals and automated actions across several criteria, including spend, security, restraints, and compliance, for both public and private clouds, she said.