Today, SAP announced the acquisition of Virsa Systems for an undisclosed amount.
Founded in 1996, Virsa has more than 300 enterprise customers, many of which are Global 1000 companies, across all major vertical market segments. SAP stated that the transaction with Virsa is continuing evidence of its strategy to use “fill-in” acquisitions to add to its broad solution offering by gaining specific technologies and capabilities that meet the needs of its customers, within industries or across industries, while maintaining its successful organic growth track record. Terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed.
Back in November, I made a semi-tongue-in-cheek reference to Virsa and Vendavo being as important to SAP as Microsoft and Adobe. What specifically caught my attention was Bill McDermott's presentation at the Investor Symposium and his singling out of four partners: Microsoft, Adobe, Virsa and Vendavo...
Two Surprising Partner "Shout Outs"...In Bill McDermott's session, he specifically highlighted four partners who were playing big roles in SAP's growing dominance. The fact that Microsoft and Adobe were among the quartet was hardly surprising. The fact that Vendavo and Virsa Systems were the other two most certainly WAS.
SAP has known Virsa for some time, as SAP Ventures was an investor. I would love to hear Jeff's take on this deal, although he may not be able to comment with much specificity at least until the deal closes. In any event, with Virsa now in the fold, is Vendavo next?
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Note: At the time of this writing, I and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over, maintained a long equity position in SAP.
It is a logical move for SAP to acquire Virsa, because of the fact that NOt acquiring Virsa would have been a risky partnership (any other companies interested in acquiring these partners, whereby SAP has acted as an incubator, making them big and succesful). Guess that this goes for all of SAP's Solution extension Partners (Virsa, Vendavo, Redwood, NRX and Mercury). Whereby Mercury is non-issue in this scheme because of the size and footprint of the company. It wil be interesting to see how this all progresses in the future.
Posted by: Anjo de Heus | April 04, 2006 at 06:03 AM