Lexmark to Purchase Saperion
September 21, 2013
Will document management work as a new business focus for an old printer company? We should find out soon enough; BusinessLexington reports, “Lexmark Announces Plans to Buy European Software Company Saperion for $72 Million.” The move is expected to expand Lexmark’s data management capabilities; it is probably a wise shift as the transition away from paper records continues. The write-up tells us:
“The purchase is another in a line of acquisitions aimed at transitioning Lexmark from a company that makes printers to a document management company, leaning heavily on software to store and deliver documents without the use of paper except when necessary.
“In addition to having a multilingual structure, Saperion’s platform can integrate with all major business software known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) as well as email and document management systems. Saperion has also developed cloud-based and mobile solutions to provide access to content, even when those trying to access documents are away from their offices.”
Saperion brings along a roster of clients from mid-sized businesses to global enterprises. The new addition would report to another acquired division, Perceptive Software, which Lexmark snapped up last year. I fact, Lexmark has been on a spending spree recently. The Perceptive deal was announced at the same time as the company’s acquisition of Nolij, and this past march it bought up Twistage and AccessVia. It looks like Lexmark is fully committed to adapting to market changes through acquisitions. Will it pay off?
Founded in 1991, Lexmark is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. The company stresses that its background in printing uniquely qualifies it to handle unstructured data. Saperion is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, has been helping clients digitize records since 1985. That business likes to focus on simplicity and efficiency, and serves organizations in a range of fields.
Cynthia Murrell, September 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Kofax Purchases Kapow for Analytics and Integration Software
September 3, 2013
Reuters reported on July 31 the update Kofax Buys Kapow Technologies for $47.5 Million. Kofax, an Irvine, California based company acquisitioned the Palo Alto based Kapow for its analytics and data integration software. The purchase moves Kofax into the big data analytics sphere. The Kapow integration product is lauded for its user-friendly interface and its simplicity (Kapow uses a subscription model which makes installation and tests unnecessary. The article Kofax Adds Integration, Big Data Analytics in Kapow Acquisition on eweek explains,
“Thus Kofax… is combining all its newly acquired software IP to provide the basis for a significant big-data software package that will enable large organizations to access data–particularly the hard-to-get data that sits behind apps with no APIs (application programming interfaces)–faster and more cost-effectively…
Kapow Katalyst provides near real-time application integration and process automation, offering traditional API level integration capabilities as well as what it terms a “synthetic API” approach, which provides business users with a point-and-click interface, the company said.”
Kapow Kapplets are the apps that implement that data integration made possible by Kapow Katalyst. Kapow customers include Astra Zeneca, Audi and Zurich Insurance Group. The Chief Officer of Kofax applauded Kapow for its consistent growth in revenue over the last four fiscal years. The most surprising aspect of the deal may be the low deal price, assuming $47.5 million is correct.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Penguin and Random House Converge
August 7, 2013
Penguindom House is here, we decided after reading “World Blockbuster in Penguin and Random Merger” at the U.K.’s Express. After the deal, said to create the world’s biggest consumer publishing company, the new entity will employ over 10,000 workers. Regarding the combined talent and titles, the write-up tells us:
“[The merger] brings together Penguin authors including Dawn French and Zadie Smith and Random House writers such as Andy McNab and Dan Brown, while the enlarged business has a back catalogue that takes in the likes of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.”
John Fallon, head of the education-focused Pearson, Penguin‘s parent company, is optimistic. (For the record, media firm Bertelsmann owns Random House. The two larger companies share ownership of the new entity almost equally.) Fallon states:
“This combination creates a clear world leader with a strong platform for continued creative and commercial success in a rapidly changing consumer publishing industry.”
Rapidly changing, indeed. Will this noteworthy development change the way writers must go about getting their work published, even through traditional, wood-pulp based channels? Will it stimulate interest in the self-publishing platforms available from Amazon, Apple, and others? Stay tuned.
Cynthia Murrell, August 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Cuadra Becomes Lucidea
August 1, 2013
Last year, the veteran information management firm Cuadra bid fond retirement wishes to its founders, then-president Carlos Cuadra and then-CFO Gloria Cuadra. Now, the SydneyPLUS affiliate joins several others being wrapped into the rebranded Lucidea, we learn from that company’s post, “Announcing Lucidea. . . We Help You to Think Clearly.” The write-up tells us:
Lucidea is a newly created knowledge management software and solutions company that includes the SydneyPLUS, Inmagic, CuadraSTAR, LawPort,LookUp Precision, ARGUS.net and ISS products. Our solutions empower people to navigate the ever expanding universe of information, resulting in actionable knowledge. We highlight our clients’ brightest people, clearest thinking and best ideas.
Please follow the links below to access more information about this exciting new development, and take a few moments to learn:
- Why we think this is great news for our products, employees and customers.
- How this latest evolution of our corporate structure will affect you.
- What effect this will have on the products you are currently using.
The post includes links for more information: a letter from the CEO (PDF), the consolidated company’s mission statement, the official press release, and a useful FAQ page.
Founded in 1978, Cuadra is headquartered in Los Angeles. CuadraSTAR is an acclaimed software package with the flexibility to manage data collections of all types from multiple environments, including archives, libraries, museums, and publishing houses.
Lucidea began in 1989 as SydneyPLUS, and it bought Cuadra in 2008. That was just one in a series of purchases that gave the firm the resources to launch this current incarnation. The company has blended its valuable acquisitions into the consolidated and rebranded Lucidea that we see now, with offices in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
Cynthia Murrell, August 01, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Healthcare Analytics Always Changing
July 30, 2013
The medical field is always evolving with new advances. The same can be said about the medical technology field, especially in mobile data analytics. Today’s hot trend is a relic faster than in almost any field, so we try hard to keep tabs, such as an illuminating article in CMS Wire, “Temis Acquires i3 Analytics to Boost Text + Data Mining.”
According to the story:
“While we don’t know how much Temis paid out in this deal, we know doctor’s love iPads. This tells us pretty much all we need to know about this deal. i3 Analytics specializes in what it calls biopharma, what most of us know as pharmaceutical research or biotechnology.”
Advances in biotech and biopharma mean more data for doctors and drug companies to rummage through, something a company like i3 Analytics is more than happy to help them with.
This is an interesting story of healthcare analytics. Frankly, nothing surprises us anymore. Heck, we recently heard that Kansas City is the new boomtown for healthcare analytics. We think if things like this are possible, there’s no way this dynamic industry will stop changing anytime soon.
Patrick Roland, July 30, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Rumored Acquisition May Put Baidu on Defensive
July 24, 2013
Now this is an interesting development. Search Engine Watch‘s Jennifer Slegg points to a rumor about China’s massive search engine market in, “Chinese Search Engine Qihoo to Buy Sogou for $1.4 Billion.” She writes:
“The Chinese search engine space just got a lot more interesting with Qihoo 360 reportedly purchasing Sohu’s Sogou search engine.
“If the report from DoNews (via The Next Web) is accurate, this deal will effectively combine the second and third largest search engines in China, which could have a significant impact on Baidu’s huge market share. . . .
“Qihoo 360 launched its own search engine in August of last year, and is second only to Baidu in terms of market share in China. Purchasing Sogou would mean the company would have nearly 25 percent of the search market share compared to Baidu’s eroding market share, which is now slightly under 70 percent.”
Is Baidu worried? Qihoo 360 launched its own engine just last year, and acquisition of the popular Sohu would mean a merger of China’s second- and third-largest search engines. Some expect the deal, rumored to be in the neighborhood of $1.4 billion, will soon be officially announced.
Cynthia Murrell, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Acquisition of Gigablast by Yippy Leaves Some Questions Unanswered
July 19, 2013
An article on Yahoo titled Yippy, Inc. (YIPI) to Acquire Gigablast, Inc. And Web Research Properties, LLC to Expand Consumer Search, Enterprise, and eDiscovery Products reported on the important acquisition by the young company. Yippy, Inc. is a search clustering tech company based in Florida with some innovative eDiscovery resources. Matt Wells, the founder of Gigablast states in the article,
“Gigablast and its related properties can provide advanced technologies for consumer, eDiscovery, and enterprise big data customers. Gigabits, a related program, is the first operational enterprise class clustering program which I put into service in 2004. Yippy’s Velocity platform was essentially based off of my original work which will allow Yippy to sell behind the firewall installations for all types of search based applications for enterprise and eDiscovery customers.”
Yippy’s Chief Executive Rich Granville claims that the acquisition will not only benefit customers through technological innovation but by low costs. He directed interested parties to a demo that might illustrate the massive potential in the merger of these companies. The demo shows that the combined indexing of billions of pages of data has already begun, although not when it will be complete. What is less clear is who is indexing what in this tie-up?
Chelsea Kerwin, July 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Embedded Security Noted As Additional Benefit of API
July 18, 2013
News of Intel’s acquisition of Mashery is still popping up on our radar. The ReadWrite article “Intel’s Buying Mashery To Get Deeper Inside The Data Center” offers an insightful perspective on why the chip giant went after a seven year old company that specializes in linking together Web-based software and services. In other words, Mashery is an API management service.
The focal point of the article reference circles around the idea that Intel no longer sees the computer as a silicon chip — now, they recognize the CPU as a network.
The article discusses the implications:
The same techniques that connect consumer apps, it turns out, also work well within large businesses. Comcast, for example, uses Mashery’s API management service to allow programmers to access internal systems. That’s a far more sensible way to create internal software than the alternative, which involves doing a lot of one-off integrations at considerable time and expense.
In addition to efficiency, a prime use case for APIs are eliminating any security risks a corporation has. We are seeing smart companies develop solutions such as Cogito API, which offers businesses concerned with avoiding risks the confidence in using a solution already embedded with corporate security measures.
Megan Feil, July 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
HP Still Facing Troubled Times
June 24, 2013
The TV show The Office appears as a motif for being constantly plagued in Yahoo Finance’s recent article on Hewlett-Packard. Appropriately, the article is titled “’The Office’ of CEO: HP’s Revolving Door.” The focus of the article lies on what the author of this piece calls the historic waste and dysfunction. Needless to say, this is an area where comparisons to the popular NBC sitcom are brought up.
HP has has six CEOs since 2005, and that is not counting interim CEOs. However, the article credits the current CEO, Meg Whitman, as bringing more stability to the company.
The Autonomy acquisition did not escape the wrath of this commentary:
“Most recently the company was embarrassed to reveal an estimated $8.8 billion write-down for a botched acquisition for British software company Autonomy, a deal that took place in 2011. Unlike any other company over the past decade, Hewlett-Packard has not been able to get out of its own way. Accordingly, the office of the CEO has had a revolving door. “
While it seems like just yesterday that many in the media were “Making Sense of HP’s Autonomy Acquisition,” the jury seems to have called it now and “HP’s Autonomy Blunder Might Be One for the Record Books.”
Megan Feil, June 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Wavii: Technology or People
April 24, 2013
I just read “Google Buys Wavii for North of $30 Million.” According to the write up:
Both Apple and Google were competing for the Seattle-based startup, and Google eventually won. Apple wanted the company, which developed its own aggregation technology and natural summarization algorithms, for its Siri division. The 25-person-strong team, including founder Adrian Aoun, will be moving down from Seattle to join Google’s Knowledge Graph division.
Interesting move. Is it for technology or people or both. My hunch is that it is people first, then technology. If the $2 million in funding is accurate, the money behind some older search and content processing outfits is going to be demanding sales sooner than later. For outfits six or more years old, generating a hefty return is likely to be a tough job.
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
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