IBM is buying French software maker ILOG for €215m ($340m).

The tech giant said today the deal is part of IBM’s strategy to beef up business process management and service-oriented architecture technologies.

The offer price represents a premium of about 56 per cent compared with ILOG’s one month average closing share price before today, and a 37 per cent premium to the closing price on Friday (25 July). IBM received commitments from shareholders representing about ten per cent of ILOG’s share capital.

ILOG separately reported today that net profit tumbled $500,000 on revenues of $181m in the year ended 30 June, from a net income of $4.9m on revs of $161.5m.

"In the fourth quarter, we faced a challenging economic environment, notably in the financial sector, which remains a key source of revenues for ILOG," the firm said. ®

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