Rocket Software has finalised its acquisition of the Application Modernisation and Connectivity (AMC) business of OpenText, previously part of Micro Focus, valued at US$2.275 billion before taxes, fees and other adjustments.

The deal is being positioned as a significant milestone for Rocket Software, expanding its customer base to over 12,500 companies and network to more than 750 partners worldwide.

Rocket Software plans to integrate and continue to develop AMC products to enhance its portfolio, helping customers stay competitive and leverage their data, applications and infrastructure regardless of their modernisation strategy.

Rocket said the acquisition has significantly increased its revenue based by over 60%. The company now offers modernisation software solutions spanning from the mainframe to the cloud. The acquisition has also led to the addition of over 770 new software engineers, go-to-market professionals and other supporting team members to the vendor's workforce. The company is also in the process of hiring hundreds of additional 'Rocketeers' to complement its existing team.

"Rocket Software’s customers are global market leaders that are constantly setting new benchmarks for excellence and innovation in their industries that we are proud to power and advance. The acquisition of the OpenText AMC business is a significant milestone that sets a similar new standard for modernisation innovation and excellence at Rocket Software and greatly accelerates our strategic growth and market penetration," said president and CEO of Rocket Software, Milan Shetti.

Commenting on the purchase, IDC Research Vice-President, Performance Intensive Computing, Peter Rutten, saw the combination of OpenText’s AMC business and Rocket Software’s highly complementary businesses as creating one of the world’s largest mainframe modernisation and connectivity software companies.

"Now Rocket Software will have a comprehensive portfolio that allows clients to modernise their workloads in place, move applications to the cloud or a combination of both through a hybrid strategy, which we see most enterprises prefer," he said.

Rocket Software is committing to integrating and continuing to develop AMC products to enhance its portfolio. In addition to several complementary Host Connectivity, Application Development and CORBA solutions, Rocket Software will offer COBOL and Enterprise Suite, market leading technologies that allow companies the ability to run COBOL and PL/I applications on distributed or cloud servers. This breadth, and the ability to integrate the various approaches, is about allowing customers to seamlessly connect any combination of solutions across the modernization continuum.

Rocket Software's customers have also expressed their support for the acquisition. "Application modernisation is key to digital transformation in financial services. As a Rocket Software customer, we've experienced firsthand the company’s commitment to innovation," said RBC EVP, Innovation & Technology, Martin Wildberger.

"Within our organisation, the need for modernisation is a dynamic process, continually evolving as we grow and scale our business. The OpenText AMC solutions have served us well and, now as part of Rocket Software, we look forward to exploring new opportunities for our data, application and infrastructure that propels us into the future," added AG Insurance CTO, José Fortemps.

Rocket Software is a US-based, privately held company sitting the Bain Capital Private Equity portfolio.