Report: EMC Acquires Software Developer Pivotal Labs

Online media firm GigaOM on Friday reported has acquired San Francisco-based Pivotal Labs with a possible eye on using that company's developmental methodology to tackle enterprise software development.

EMC did not respond to requests for more information. Pivotal Labs was unable to provide comment.

[Related: EMC Melds ECM, ILM, Virtualization Into A Single Storage Strategy ]

However, Rob Mee, CEO and founder of Pivotal Labs, hinted about the acquisition in a Friday blog post in which he wrote, "Looks like the word is out. We'll have more news on Tuesday but we want you to know we're excited about the future. Same services, same Pivotal Tracker, same industry leading development practices - now paired with more resources than ever."

Pivotal Labs is the developer of Pivotal Tracker, a software application which allows multiple developers to collaborate from remote locations to accelerate the development process.

The company also develops software for enterprise, mobile, and Web businesses. It's client list includes some of the hottest software and social media companies including Twitter, Salesforce.com, Groupon, and Gowalla, which late last year was acquired by Facebook. Best Buy is also a Pivotal Labs client.

GigaOM wrote that large hardware vendors like EMC need to find a way to face challenges from such companies as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google which have done well in attracting the new generation businesses to use their platforms.

"In order for these hardware vendors to stay relevant, they need to offer their hardware as a service -- storage or computing for example -- and then attract others such as startups and enterprises to their platforms," GigaOM wrote.

EMC has a long history of moving out of its storage comfort zone to acquire companies which help it expand its business. The most important was its late 2003 acquisition of virtualization developer VMware.