IBM and HCL Technologies today announced a definitive agreement under which HCL will acquire select IBM software products for USD 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 USD 50 billion and include:

> Appscan for secure application development,
> BigFix for secure device management,
> Unica (on-premise) for marketing automation,
> Commerce (on-premise) for omni-channel eCommerce,
> Portal (on-premise) for digital experience,
> Notes & Domino for email and low-code rapid application development, and
> Connections for workstream collaboration.

HCL and IBM have an ongoing IP Partnership for five of these products.

''We continue to see great opportunities in the market to enhance our Mode-3 (Products and Platforms) offerings. The products that we are acquiring are in large growing market areas like Security, Marketing and Commerce which are strategic segments for HCL. Many of these products are well regarded by clients and positioned in the top quadrant by industry analysts,'' said C Vijayakumar, President & CEO, HCL Technologies.

Shares of the company declined Rs 63.45, or 6.27%, to trade at Rs 948.50. The total volume of shares traded was 143,042 at the BSE (9.59 a.m., Friday).