I’ve been in the enterprise space for many decades, and I’ve seen quite a few aggregators acquiring ERP companies. The rationale is usually to acquire an existing customer base and its income stream (generally stable or slowly declining), and to squeeze costs in the acquired businesses by sharing management, IP, resources and skills. These are both legitimate and worthwhile business objectives (although employees may not see it that way). The aggregator usually benefits the group’s customers by extending the support and useful life of the mature products they are using, and in some cases the acquired companies would not have survived on their own, so the aggregator also preserves the jobs of at least some of the staff.
It looks to me like Rogue Wave is an aggregator aiming to specialise in the open source space, and they’re not alone in that. Zend has played a crucial part in the development and growth of PHP, particularly in making it credible in the enterprise space. Zend is still one of the leading innovators in the PHP community. Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski are Zend’s most important assets. So I cannot see how it would be in Rogue Wave’s interests to interfere with Zend’s technical direction, or to damage their management structure. On balance, I’m pleased that Zend has some additional financial and organisational backing behind it.
As for how Zend fares under Rogue Wave’s wing, the key factor is the fit between Rogue Wave’s and Zend’s corporate cultures. I would expect that angle has been worked out as part of the acquisition negotiations. But time will tell.