HCL Technologies (HCL) on Thursday announced that it will acquire select IBM software products for $1.8 billion. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2019, subject to completion of applicable regulatory reviews.

The software products in scope represent a total addressable market of more than $50 billion, IBM said in a statement.

The company will divest seven of its products, including its secure device management product BigFix, marketing automation product Unica and workstream collaboration product Connections.

“The products that we are acquiring are in large growing market areas like security, marketing and commerce which are strategic segments for HCL," said C Vijayakumar, president and CEO, HCL Technologies.

IBM's software sales, which have slowed down in the past, also weighed on its latest quarterly revenue.

HCL's revenue from software services business, however, rose about 21 percent to Rs 8,711 crore, leading the company to beat its second-quarter profit.

IBM is also in the process of buying US software company Red Hat Inc for $34 billion, including debt.

(With inputs from Reuters)

First Published:Dec 7, 2018 6:32 AM IST