But Mann also warned CIOs to be "wary" of buying Quest's entire suite without looking it over carefully.

"I am not privy to their development plans, but I hope that some of the 72 product releases include closer integration and some product rationalization," he said. "They have too many barely-related products right now. They have made a start on rationalization, but they have a long way yet to go."

CitiStreet LLC, a North Quincy, Mass.-based third-party provider of employee benefits plans for companies, uses Quest tools, including Toad, Performasure, JProbe, Foglight Cartridges and Quest Central.

"The Quest tools have enabled CitiStreet to constantly improve both the performance and availability of our applications, both of which are critical to us providing optimal service to our customers," said Barry Strasnick, CIO of CitiStreet. "As either Quest introduces new capabilities and/or CitiStreet faces new challenges, Quest has credibility when they talk with our technical teams."

Besides its database management tools, Quest earlier this year released its Vintela family of plug-ins for Microsoft Operations Manager that allow IT managers to oversee their Windows and Linux machines from a single console.