Black Duck Software, the leading global provider of software compliance management solutions, today announced transactIP™, a new hosted solution that evaluates the integrity of software code as part of due diligence before a software asset is purchased. With transactIP, Black Duck builds on its protexIP™ platform, which manages the intellectual property requirements associated with software code that has been developed, deployed or distributed. transactIP is uniquely suited for meeting the requirements of legal teams, auditors, executives and other individuals involved in M&A deals.

Black Duck’s introduction of transactIP extends the company’s dominance in serving firms and businesses performing due diligence on software assets. Black Duck’s solutions have already evaluated software code involved in more than $22 billion worth of financial transactions, including M&A of both public and private companies, business divestitures and venture capital investments. transactIP, the industry’s only hosted solution, offers an easy-to-use, web-based interface that streamlines the process of evaluating code and producing reports for the multiple audiences involved in any transaction.

“Black Duck Software is the gold standard in the software compliance management market,” said Doug Johnson, executive vice president of business operations and CFO at Black Duck. “We’ve attained this position by offering the best technology, architectural superiority over any other offering and the ease of use associated with hosted solutions. Company after company has turned to Black Duck when hundreds of millions of dollars ride on a single transaction because they know we deliver the accuracy, speed and expertise required to help them understand the asset at hand. Now, with transactIP, Black Duck offers a range of methods for customers to manage this part of the due diligence process.”

“Black Duck was the first company to offer its software compliance management products and services to the industry, and it has built on its lead with products, customers and funding,” said Jay Lyman, analyst with The 451 Group, a technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation, in a report dated March 13, 2007.

In a report about a competitor also written by Lyman on February 16, 2007, he said: “Keeping up with Black Duck’s technology and its much larger list of customers will remain a significant challenge.” [See Editor’s Note]
  
The need to check for the proper use of code during software due diligence derives directly from how software assets are constructed. Today’s development model involves software reuse, as software code from open source projects and other third-party applications is assembled by a software architect to create an application. This model has its benefits—better applications and rapidly completed projects—but it also brings requirements associated with the reused software components. Black Duck’s solutions manage the process of evaluating and meeting those requirements.

Johnson continued: “transactIP is for those who need a snapshot right now of whether their code is in compliance with legal obligations and used according to the license terms, and that frameset is an exact match to the parties involved in a financial transaction.”

Three Ways To Capitalize on Black Duck’s Expertise

With the introduction of transactIP, customers can capitalize on Black Duck’s due diligence expertise in any of three ways. First, customers themselves can utilize the transactIP service. Black Duck has streamlined the purchasing process so companies that might need to use transactIP with little notice from time to time (a common feature of a transaction) can create an account at Black Duck and start scanning code within minutes.

Black Duck has experienced substantial market demand for its solutions during M&A events, and has partnered to meet this demand. Semaphore, a due diligence services company, has selected transactIP to augment existing efforts and streamline many of its processes for evaluating software assets ahead of transactions. Semaphore’s selection highlights the different ways customers can capitalize on Black Duck’s technology as part of due diligence.

Customers can select these specialists such as Semaphore to receive various due diligence reports that include transactIP-powered information. For these partners, Black Duck can configure the solution to generate reports that carry the partner’s branding. Since transactIP is a web-based service, partners need only log in while at a customer site to execute a code analysis.

For those partners and customers conducting many code analyses, Black Duck offers dedicated internal server resources to manage the volume. Black Duck provides this service to a large company that has completed a number of software acquisitions, demonstrating the ability to scale the service and process large volumes of code. Black Duck is alone in its ability to offer a hosted solution that requires absolutely no on-site consulting. In this manner, Black Duck helps speed the due diligence process and very rapidly respond to customer requests.

“transactIP is the most comprehensive due diligence solution on the market,” said Crispin Miller, practice lead, technology advisory service at Semaphore. “No other solution exists that allows companies to assess software as quickly and accurately. The customers utilizing our services understand more and more that software assets must be properly assessed before a deal can be done. transactIP provides the most timely and effective way of doing this.”

Finally, Black Duck offers professional services where on-site specialists can use transactIP and other methods to analyze a software asset for proper use of the code. A number of customers have relied on this first-person counsel ahead of a transaction, and Black Duck has the ability to move quickly, maintain confidentiality  and match the pace of the due diligence process.

transactIP Streamlines Due Diligence
For companies electing to use the new transactIP service, the solution streamlines the due diligence process in many ways:

• Hosted offering provides rapid snapshots—transactIP is hosted by Black Duck. Users access it via a website and direct transactIP at a specific code base to be evaluated. The process speeds up a typical software due diligence by more than 10 times and produces a higher quality result. Reports for multiple parties at the acquirer and acquired are generated, and all reports are accessed online.
  
  
• Separation of parties—For obvious reasons, the acquirer in an M&A transaction has different interests than the acquired. transactIP provides due diligence information to the acquirer without showing source code or other intellectual property. The solution keeps the two parties separated while providing each the information it needs to continue the process.
  
  
• Full features for due diligence—transactIP offers many features made popular by Black Duck’s other solutions. transactIP users can create reports using Code Label™ functionality, which generates a food-label-style review of what is exactly in software code. In addition, transactIP relies on the protexIP Knowledge Base, the most comprehensive industry catalogue of open source projects and code components. transactIP compares code involved in M&A acquisitions to the KnowledgeBase to identify potential concerns. 

Presentations at Software 2007 and Red Hat Summit
Black Duck executives will be highlighting transactIP at two separate industry events this week. At Software 2007 in Santa Clara, Calif., Doug Johnson will present inside the Innovation Showcase, discussing how transactIP is the latest solution meeting the needs of more and more audiences who must fully comprehend the use requirements of software code. On the same day Johnson speaks, May 9, Black Duck’s President and CEO Douglas Levin presents on the same topic at the Red Hat Summit in San Diego.

Pricing and Availability
transactIP will be available by the end of May. Pricing is based on the size of the code base managed by the service, and pricing begins at $95 per megabyte, with a five megabyte minimum.

About Black Duck Software
Black Duck Software™ is the leading provider of software compliance management solutions that help companies govern how software assets are created and managed. Black Duck’s offerings help businesses take maximum advantage of open source software while at the same time ensure that they satisfy the obligations associated with the code they use. Black Duck’s customer base includes enterprises, product developers, outsourcers, law firms and other organizations worldwide that are concerned with protection of software intellectual property. For more information about Black Duck, visit www.blackducksoftware.com.