EMC made a nice expansion of its software line on Tuesday by taking ownership of BMC's Patrol Storage Manager product.

It wasn't the warmest of welcomes for Patrol, as EMC said it plans to discontinue the product and move customers over to the EMC ControlCenter management product line. EMC and BMC have formed a partnership to sell ControlCenter and shuffle customers off of the now deceased Patrol software.

EMC has been working to back up claims that it's ready to manage multivendor storage gear. The deal with its one-time rival appears to be a step in the right direction.

EMC will now be the central support contact for all Patrol customers, and both companies plan to combine their marketing expertise in the storage management market.

It's long been rumored that BMC is a prime acquisition target for EMC, but neither company seems willing to budge just yet. They could, however, continue to create strong ties between EMC's storage management products and BMC's server side apps. ®