Progress builds up developer chops with Telerik buy

In a move to muscle up in the app dev space, platform services provider Progress Software is in the process of acquiring development software vendor Telerik for US$262.5 million.

Progress plans to fold Telerik's tools into its developer platform, Progress announced Wednesday.

Telerik will bring to Progress a sizable user base of over 1.4 million developers. The company's revenue over the past year has been $60 million, and it is currently increasing its business by more than 20 percent.

Telerik sells a suite of user interface development tools and application life cycle management products. The company supports a variety of languages, including Microsoft .NET, Java, JavaScript and Node.js, and Progress' OpenEdge Advanced Business Language.

"Telerik has built a strong name for itself in the software components space, mostly around the Microsoft ecosystem, but the company has been busy expanding into other areas like mobile development, testing services and the Sitefinity content management system/portal technology that is fairly popular with developers," wrote Al Hilwa, IDC program director for software development research, in an email.

The two companies have a highly complementary set of technologies, according to Progress. Progress' OpenEdge platform runs online applications on behalf of more than 4 million users and 47,000 businesses.

The acquisition will help put Progress into faster growing areas in the application development space, Hilwa noted. "We will have to see if the combined company can keep executing at the same level in terms of growth as the independent Telerik has been," he wrote.

Progress is planning on completing the acquisition in December.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com