Boole & Babbage Inc announced that Platinum Technology Inc has filed suit against the company in an attempt to block its pending $900m merger with BMC Software Inc. Platinum's complaint alleges that B&B breached a "standstill and exclusive negotiation agreement" it had with Platinum. Further, Platinum

charges that BMC interfered with the alleged agreement by negotiating and executing its own agreement with B&B, which was announced November 2. Platinum is up in arms for obvious reasons, as the combination of the other two would create a combined company with 4,400 staff and revenues of $1.1bn - putting it way ahead of Platinum ($623m in revenue last year) in the application management market, and on par with leader Compuware Corp ($1.13bn). Platinum is also seeking a preliminary injunction which would void the merger agreement and force B&B to negotiate exclusively with it for a period of 120 days. That was the length of the original agreement in August, Platinum said, during which it was to have exclusive rig hts to bargain with B&B in return for assurances such as the promise not to launch a hostile takeover bid. Platinum insisted that there was no major problems or break- off of discussions and that the BMC deal "came as a complete surprise." B&B, for its part, asserted that Platinum's claims are without merit and said the acquisition by BMC is in its shareholders' best interests. Barring any material interference such as that which Platinum seeks, the deal is currently expected to close sometime in December.