Event Summary
"PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Informatica Corp. (Nasdaq: INFA),
the company whose software provides the infrastructure powering some of the
world's most advanced business intelligence systems, today announced the acquisition
of Influence Software, a leading provider of analytic applications for the e-business
value chain. The combination of the two companies' products will enable Informatica
to deliver the industry's first analytic solution optimized to address the multi-channel
requirements of industrial-strength "B2B" e-businesses. Informatica is acquiring
Influence Software for roughly $80 million in a stock transaction.
The
transaction will be treated as a pooling of interests. The acquisition marks
a realization of Informatica's vision to become the leading provider of packaged
analytic applications for B2B e-business. According to analysts at Forrester
Research, the overall e-business market is expected to grow to $1.3 trillion
in 2003, with $1.1 trillion spent on B2B solutions as big businesses embrace
e-business. Informatica's new analytic applications will address a critical
need -- helping large, multi-channel corporations gain insight into the performance
of their complete e-business value chains, including the productivity, efficiency
and quality of their buying and selling relationships with customers, suppliers,
marketplaces and trading partners."
Market
Impact
According to Informatica, "the business-to-consumer ("B2C") segment of e-business
has captured much market attention. Somewhat overlooked are the many established
big businesses, or "brick and mortar" companies, with multiple supplier, sales
and distribution channels who are today aggressively pursuing e-business solutions
to help them automate, analyze and optimize such critical operations as procurement,
logistics, inventory management, supplier efficiency and customer satisfaction."
If Informatica has bet correctly, they will have a head start on many of their
competitors, such as Ardent Software (currently being acquired by Informix),
Computer Associates, and Sagent Technology.
User
Recommendations
Customers involved in e-business should consider Informatica's solution as part
of a long list of vendor prospects. It remains to be seen how well Informatica
has integrated Influence Software's solution with their PowerCenter and PowerMart
product lines. Given that they have had an OEM agreement with Influence for
most of 1999, many of the integration issues should have already been addressed.
This merger should be of special interest to customers engaging in Extended
Supply Chain and e-procurement efforts.