IBM and Ascential Software Corporation announced the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire the equity of Ascential Software in an all cash transaction at a price of approximately $1.1 billion or $18.50 per share. The acquisition is subject to Ascential Software shareholder and regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2005. The acquisition complements IBM’s information integration business, a key part of the company’s information management efforts and a unit that produced triple-digit growth in 2004. Ascential Software’s ability to gather, move and enhance the quality of large amounts of data complements IBM’s WebSphere Information Integrator product portfolio. WebSphere Information Integrator software enables customers to centrally manage and access data that is stored across a variety of structured and unstructured sources, from IBM and non-IBM vendors. IBM will: establish Ascential Software’s operations as a business unit within IBM’s Information Management software division; incorporate Ascential Software technology and solutions into IBM’s Information Management and Software Group offerings; and market and sell Ascential Software products through IBM’s and Ascential Software’s worldwide sales channels and Business Partners. www.ibm.com, www.ascential.com
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Joe Kraus has a post that applies the now famous long tail argument to software. He admits that the argument applies to software like his own company’s JotSpot, and plugs it in. But if he is right, his argument applies to other products including JotSpot’s competitors.
It is easy to agree with the premises:
- the vast majority of business applications require customization
- most enterprise solutions focus on a few large semi-well-defined application areas because the economics don’t reward small (long tail) opportunity harvesting, and
- there is opportunity here for software entrepreneurs.
Joe argues that a combination of Excel and email are being used to fill the long tail gap, but that they are inadequate. This may be true, but it is a bit of a leap to an implied conclusion that one piece of “blockbuster” software could better meet the needs of the long tail of business requirements in all their diversity.
This is not to say that there won’t be more blockbuster successes that help with long tail business needs — Excel, email, and web browsers are all examples of such a wild horizontal success — and Groove of one that didn’t catch fire (see Bill Trippe’s comment on the Microsoft acquisition), but will some combination of enterprise blog and wiki software be equally successful? Well… maybe. In any case, Joe’s post is thought provoking and his analogy might be richer than he, or any of his commenters to date, realize.
Day announced the release of the Beta version of the company’s Java Content Repository. The new product is based on the new Java standard for Enterprise Content, JSR 170. Day’s Content Repository Extreme (CRX) provides a complete commercial implementation of all functionalities defined in the specification. Day’s new Java Content Repository provides standardized enterprise content services such as indexing, search, versioning, check-in/check-out or access control for all documents. Simultaneously, other applications can be accessed via the same interface on all documents and content services. This new architecture allows for the use of completely different documents corporate-wide and overall systems. JSR 170 will be officially introduced worldwide in the first half of 2005. www.day.com
Infrae, based in Rotterdam and Nuxeo, based in Paris, announce their cooperation on developing enterprise-grade software, with a focus on Zope 3 application technologies. The two companies focus on enterprise CMS software using the Zope 3 platform. Infrae is the creator of the ‘Silva’ CMS, and Nuxeo of the ‘Collaborative Portal Server’ (CPS). The Zope 3 platform is an advanced version of the Zope application server, developed by Zope Corporation together with an international group of open source developers. Zope 3 is written in Python. Built around a component architecture, Zope 3 offers increased reusability and customizability. Infrae and Nuxeo remain committed to the Zope 2 platform. During the preceding months the companies have used Five to extend Silva and CPS with Zope 3 technology. Five is a component – developed by Infrae and now maintained by an open source community – to integrate Zope 3 technologies in Zope 2. Nuxeo has made significant contributions to Five, for instance exposing the full power of the Zope 3 schema/forms machinery. Five is now ready for production use. ww.infrae.nl, www.nuxeo.com/en/
Microsoft Corp. announced that it will acquire Groove Networks Inc. The addition of Groove products to the lineup of Microsoft Office System products, servers and services builds on the capabilities of Microsoft’s current collaboration products. The acquisition also brings to Microsoft founder Ray Ozzie, a creator of IBM Corp.’s Lotus Notes. Ozzie will assume the role of chief technical officer, reporting to Bill Gates, with responsibility for influencing corporate-wide communication and collaboration offerings and associated platform infrastructure. Ozzie also will continue his work with the Groove team, which will be part of Microsoft’s Information Worker Group. Groove has worked closely with Microsoft for nearly five years. After the deal is completed, the nearly 200-person Groove organization will continue to operate from its Beverly, Mass., headquarters as part of Microsoft’s Information Worker Group. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2005. Groove will continue to operate as a separate company until regulatory requirements have been met and the acquisition is finalized. A free trial edition of Groove Virtual Office is available. www.groove.net, www.microsoft.com
IBM unveiled a new software portfolio that extends the reach of content management using web services to enable all types of data to be captured, managed and searched. IBM is delivering a content and information integration platform to leverage information across diverse repositories, providing a single view of business critical information. The company also added new offerings for the banking and life sciences industries to its portfolio of more than 160 industry-specific content management solutions. IBM’s new software includes the improved performance and integration of Project Cinnamon, part of the company’s effort to improve the speed and efficiency with which XML documents are processed. The technology also delivers automated indexing and searching capabilities, providing better control over structured and unstructured data repositories. IBM’s enhanced content management portfolio includes: DB2 Content Manager 8.3, DB2 Document Manager 8.3, and DB2 CommonStore 8.3. Planned availability for DB2 Content Manager 8.3, DB2 Document Manager 8.3 and DB2 CommonStore 8.3 is March 25, 2005. IBM DB2 Content Management is available through IBM and through IBM Business Partners. www.software.ibm.com/data
Altova announced general availability of Altova software version 2005 release 3 (v2005r3), which features several significant enhancements to MapForce 2005, including expanded support for Electronic Data Integration (EDI) standards. MapForce 2005 now supports EDI output and the ANSI/ASC X12 standard. Additionally, MapForce 2005 and other products within the Altova product line have been updated to include support for the latest versions of the W3C XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 specification working drafts. The company also announced that the Altova SchemaAgent 2005 graphical schema management tool is now available to all customers as a standalone product and included within both the Enterprise and Professional Editions of the Altova XML Suite 2005. The updated products within Altova software version 2005 release 3 – XMLSpy 2005, MapForce 2005, StyleVision 2005, Authentic 2005, and SchemaAgent 2005 – are all immediately available for purchase. Customers with valid SMP are eligible for a free update to v2005r3 production software. A 30-day free trial may be downloaded. www.altova.com
Lauren’s report on enterprise blog and wiki use has been getting phenomenal attention. We have decided to probe a little more into actual corporate use of blog and wiki technology with a survey. We’ll pull the complete results together for our conference in San Francisco in April, but will also publish some of it on our site as it comes in. Take the survey!
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