Tripwire getting desparate?

BMC dealt Tripwire a big blow when they announced the acquisition of BladeLogic. Tripwire had invested a lot in the BMC relationship. For the past several years they made deals through BMC compensation neutral for their sales force. At the last BMC User Conference Tripwire was seen participating in several of the sessions. The rumor is that BMC was negotiating with both Tripwire and BladeLogic till the last minute.

So if you are tripwire what do you do?  We have heard that tripwire were really hoping that BMC would buy them, but seems like they overplayed their hand.  Then came the press release from tripwire: 1,141 financial transactions?????

Financial Transactions: what does that mean. Are they trying to impress someone here? It turns out that in Feburary Tripwire sent email to all their customers and resellers saying that they were increasing their pricing and if you wanted to maintain the original pricing and maintenance, they should renew now. So they got a pop in FINANCIAL TRANACTIONS!! Huh! You can only screw your customers once in a decade. A different perspecitve: of all the customers accumulated by tripwire in 10+ years they were only able to force 1,141 to renew. Solidcore’s renewal rate is in the high 80s.

So why do this? Are they trying desparately to find a new buyer?