10 July 2002 Business Objects has acquired privately-owned data integration software vendor Acta Technology in a $65 million (€65.8m) cash deal.
“With the integration of our two product sets, Business Objects will be able to offer our customers a total solution for business intelligence, from data extraction to analytic application delivery, and everything in between,” said Business Objects CEO Bernard Liautaud.
Acta’s tools are used to analyse data in the fields of supply chain management and customer relationship management (CRM), among other applications. With the acquisition of Acta, Business Objects will have a complete enterprise analytic platform (EAP) and will be able to compete head-on with data integration specialists such as Informatica, say analysts.
Acta, which is based in Mountain View, California, specialises in data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) software tools. The company has 125 staff, but not all of them will be retained by Business Objects.
The company had sales of approximately $25 million (€25.3m) in 2001. By contrast, Business Objects is France’s third largest software vendor, listed on both Nasdaq and Euronext Paris and boasted revenues of $415.8 million (€422m) in 2001.
The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be finalised by the end of the third quarter of 2002.
