IBM's (NYSE: IBM) plan to buy Sterling Commerce from AT&T (NYSE: T) for $1.4 billion is part of the company's larger strategy to ramp up its acquisition spending over the next few years. The acquisition reflects IBM's expectations that businesses will remain enthusiastic about working with their partners and suppliers online, writes Steve Lohr at the New York Times.

Sterling's software enables companies to automate their B2B transactions. This is the kind of "smart plumbing" that IBM appears to be focusing its investments on, Lohr writes. Previous acquisitions of software companies, including Cognos, SPSS and Ilog, centered more on business analytics and business intelligence, while the Sterling purchase targets back-end capabilities.

IBM's purchases so far don't indicate that it plans to move into business applications software, like that offered by Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and SAP, Lohr points out. Instead, it appears to be concentrating on the underlying software, which provides a "platform" for Big Blue's services business.

"IBM's consulting and services business supplies expertise and technology tailored for specific industries. And expertise that is made repeatable and reusable is embodied in code--software, that is," Lohr writes.

IBM isn't alone among the major IT vendors in ratcheting up acquisition activity. Tech M&A activity appears to be returning to a "normal" level, reports Ben Steverman at Bloomberg/BusinessWeek. IBM and other IT giants--Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), in particular--have considerable cash on hand and are looking for additions to their offerings that will help them deal with rapid changes in technology. 

For more:
- see Steve Lohr's article at the New York Times
- see Ben Steverman's article at Bloomberg/BusinessWeek

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