2 replies to this topic

[Stefan Krueger]

Altiris, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATRS) today announced that it has acquired privately held Wise Solutions in a combined cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $43 million.
The strategic acquisition of Wise significantly enhances Altiris® IT lifecycle management offerings with the addition of Wise branded products, and provides Altiris with technology that will enhance existing client and server management offerings, specifically in software delivery and patch management.

http://www.wise.com/...acquisition.pdf
http://www.altiris.c...view.asp?pr=189

[Stefan Krueger]

Here are some additional facts about the acquision. They are taken from a phone conference that you can replay here (registration required):
http://www.corporate...&item_id=812795

• Altiris has been working with Wise for over a year, integrating and distributing Wise products.
• Altiris is not only interested in Wise's technology, but also in their customer base. Currently there's only an estimated 25-30% overlap in the customer bases of the two companies.
• In the first three quarters of this year Wise had a revenue of $14,8 million, earning $1,1 million.
• Close to 90% of that revenue came from the System Administrator/IT market (Wise Package Studio), only 10% from the Developer/ISV market (Wise for Windows Installer, Wise for Visual Studio .NET, Wise Installation System)
• Wise will function as a separate business unit inside Altiris in most departments. However some groups like sales and product management will be integrated.
• 111 of the 113 Wise employees will be carried over to Altiris. The two exceptions are Wise co-founder Brien Witkowski, and the former Wise CFO. However John McMillan, the other founder and technical head of Wise, will stay with the company.
• Altiris does not plan an immediate reduction in head count, but expects a reduction in new hires due to synergy effects.

I would like to hear your thoughts about this deal. I have started a thread in the Off Topic forum.

[Stefan Krueger]

Gartner, Inc. analyses the Wise/Altiris deal

Here are some quotes from an article on the Gartner web site:

The Wise acquisition now also gives Altiris a complete packaging solution. Historically, Altiris has done well by gaining a toehold with one of its products and then selling its other products to customers. Wise's significant presence in IT operations will give Altiris a large new installed base to upsell.
[...]
Many Altiris competitors in configuration management have a variety of relationships with Wise, including Novell and Tivoli. Although Altiris will continue to sell Wise products separately, Gartner believes that Altiris will not want to assist its competitors in improving seamless integration with Wise's Package Studio. We also believe that other configuration management vendors will protect their interests and guard against Altiris' upselling by improving their own packaging capabilities or switching their alliance and integration to InstallShield.

The full article can be found at
http://www3.gartner....ument?id=417502