Black Duck Launches New Program for Enhanced Due Diligence; Improves Technology Assessments in Software M&A and Financing
First Program of its Kind for Lawyers, Technology Executives, VCs, Investment Bankers and Services Firms Creates Framework for More Comprehensive and Efficient Due Diligence
Black Duck Software, the leading provider of software compliance management solutions, today announced that it has created the industry's first program for facilitating more thorough, accurate, and efficient due diligence and technology assessments. The Enhanced Due Diligence program brings together focused legal expertise and the best technology for automated code review and analysis, and makes that powerful combination readily available on demand anywhere in the world.
The Enhanced Due Diligence program meets the evolving requirements and challenges faced today by buyers and sellers of software assets, and by investors involved in software M&A and funding activities. It establishes a new framework and methodology for efficiently determining and documenting the pedigree of software assets. Participants receive specialized training, tailored materials, and cooperative sales and marketing assistance. The program also includes special pricing for Black Duck's protexIPTM/OnDemand software compliance management solution.
Many law firms, technology companies, M&A and due diligence teams, open source strategy firms, VCs and investment bankers are already enrolled and actively participating in the program.
"As the clear leader in this space, and offering the only available hosted solution, Black Duck is uniquely qualified to create and facilitate this program," said Douglas A. Levin, CEO of Black Duck Software. "This program is intended to help companies in the midst of preparing for or realizing an M&A event or financing. It lets them confidently adopt an automated approach to code review and analysis for M&A, due diligence, and technology licensing transactions."
"We are very pleased to be part of the Enhanced Due Diligence program that Black Duck has created," said Stephen Davidson, shareholder and founder of the Information Technology practice at Leonard, Street and Deinard. "Technology due diligence and code content analysis is a critical part of every transaction in which software assets are an important component. The use of an automated code analysis platform enables us to leverage technology to deliver results to our clients in a highly efficient way."
"We have worked with Black Duck for some time and are pleased to be working with them now to advance the quality and efficiency of technology due diligence," said Ira Heffan, an associate with Goodwin Procter LLP. "Through the Enhanced Due Diligence program, we can help our clients apply automation to their code assessments, greatly improving accuracy and comprehensiveness. With a clear picture of the pedigree of software assets, our clients can make better business decisions."
"The days of manual, line-by-line reviews of code are thankfully gone forever," said Lawrence Rosen, founding partner of Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm specializing in intellectual property protection and Lecturer in Law at Stanford University. "By creating this program and providing the online solution to support it, Black Duck is enabling a new, intelligent approach to due diligence. My firm is actively participating in this program, and it is helping us add value for our clients by increasing their effectiveness while reducing the time and costs associated with their due diligence projects."
"The Black Duck team clearly knows what is required to facilitate rapid yet comprehensive technical assessment of software code," said Mark Radcliffe, partner and co-chair of the Technology and Sourcing practice for DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP. "Inside most software products created today is a complex blend of intellectual property. With the Enhanced Due Diligence program, Black Duck provides the training and tools that legal, financial, business and technical types need to understand and manage intellectual property in a changing software development landscape."
"GTC has used Black Duck's OnDemand solution with excellent results in performing legal due diligence for a number of its clients," said Sean Belanga, a founder of GTC Law Group LLP. "In the last few years, our clients have become increasingly aware of the risks and rewards of open source software use, and due diligence focused on this issue has become the standard. Black Duck's OnDemand solution meets an important need for a tool that enables the sort of detailed, rights-based due diligence demanded by sophisticated investors and acquirers in the software space. We expect that the services that come with the Enhanced Due Diligence program will help us continue to differentiate our own software due diligence offering."
protexIP/OnDemand
protexI P /OnDemand is the industry's first and only hosted service that helps companies to mitigate business risk by validating proper use of open source software within their intellectual property assets. The service has been used to analyze millions of lines of user code since its introduction early in 2005. protexIP/OnDemand lets due diligence teams, enterprise IT developers, independent software vendors (ISVs), and outsourcers examine software projects to discover open source software and ensure that licensing obligations are met. It a secure solution that leaves users' source code safely behind their companies' firewall during analysis.
About Black Duck Software
Black Duck SoftwareTM is the leading provider of software compliance management solutions that help companies govern how software assets are created, managed, and licensed. Black Duck's offerings help businesses take maximum advantage of open source software while at the same time ensure that they satisfy the obligations associated with the code they use. Black Duck's customer base includes enterprises, product developers, outsourcers, law firms and other organizations worldwide that are concerned with protection of software intellectual property. For more information about Black Duck, visit www.blackducksoftware.com.
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© 2006 Black Duck Software, Inc. Black Duck Software, Sorting Out Software IP, and protexIP are trademarks of Black Duck Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
For more information, please contact:
John Riley, Black Duck Software
Tel: +1.781.891.5100, x404
jriley@blackducksoftware.com
Ross Levanto, Schwartz Communications
rossl@schwartz-pr.com
+1 781.684.0770
