Synopsys completes acquisition of Black Duck Software

Synopsys, the California-based software company, has completed its acquisition of Black Duck Software, specialist in automated solutions for securing and managing open source software based in Boston. The value of the cash transaction was approximately $547 million net of cash acquired. Software development is undergoing rapid change, including the increasing use of open source software (OSS), which makes up 60% or more of the code in today’s applications. While the use of open source code lowers development costs and speeds time to market, it has been accompanied by significant security and licence-compliance challenges, because most organisations lack visibility into the OSS in use. Black Duck’s products automate the process of identifying and inventorying open source code, detecting known security vulnerabilities and licence compliance issues. It also provides automated alerts for any newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting the open source code.