The most exciting deal of the quarter is not a deal at all yet, more just an expression of interest. SS&C, the financial services software firm (that bought Intralinks in 2018), has made a $1.6B bid to take over RPA vendor Blue Prism
Last week Dropbox to little fanfare announced that they had acquired San Francisco-based desktop search firm Command E.
Driven largely by the rise in popularity and similarly huge valuations of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), there is the impression that PTM and RPA technologies are tied at the hip. Indeed, RPA projects are likely to be far more successful if the business analysts involved in those projects make use of PTM tools. But that is only part of a much more complex story.
There is a boxing match this week between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. But there is another equally heavyweight match lining up between Hyland and OpenText.
That is a tough pill to swallow for many enterprise software companies, but Box appears to be committed to it. From a buyer’s standpoint, it makes the platform attractive and predictable in terms of cost. From Box’s perspective, it means a short-term hit but much stickier and longer-term relationships with its subscription base.
Salesforce has a vision; much of its work is customer-driven and reflects their needs, rather than the silicon valley norm of inventing things and finding a use for them. But it’s also a huge company, with many moving parts. Though it tells an admirable story, the reality is that so many technology parts and new acquisitions are not easy to balance, integrate, maintain, and manage.
It is worth noting, that what OpenText is doing is in stark contrast to its nearest competitor Hyland (backed by PE firm Thoma Bravo). That has over the past couple of years acquired a blockchain startup (Learning Machine), an RPA vendor (Another Monday) along with open source DAM/ECM vendors (Nuxeo & Alfresco).
Considering the sheer volume of startups and smaller legacy firms, there is no shortage to choose from, and the economies of scale can make many a target.
A cheap and straightforward to install and use blockchain add-on/plugin to systems like SharePoint and Salesforce. I rarely call out a specific vendor in an analyst note, and I only do so here to ask why it took so long?
etc.) compliant. Except this is not true. What has usually happened is that somebody within an enterprise has read an article somewhere by a legal ‘expert’ that has stated that blockchain is not GDPR compliant.
