Content Management Matters ™

Not all M&A's are reason to celebrate. Sometimes they happen guns a-blazing. We get the feeling Oracle's attempt to acquire BEA Systems will be just that kind of socially awkward cold war-type thing.

Last Wednesday, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison announced that a future takeover bid for BEA Systems will be less than the US$ 7 billion it was willing to pay last month. He pointed to the stock price and coolly added, "Clearly the $17 price seems too high now."

US$ 17 per share was the valuation of Oracle's initial takeover bid. But Ellison's comment is also an acknowledgment of the downturn in value for a number of tech stocks, which hit Oracle hard, according to the Financial Times. BEA's shares have enjoyed a safe plateau as its shareholders anticipate a fresh bid from Oracle.

Last month Oracle's offer to buy BEA was rejected because it "undervalued the company." But Ellison remains grimly optimistic, adding at its recent SF-based annual financial analyst meeting, "It looks like no one [else] is going to buy BEA. We were the only buyer then."

No one's safe from the M&A bug. UK firm Autonomy has just agreed to purchase Belfast-based Meridio for US$ 40.8 million.

Meridio is a global provider of enterprise document and records management software. Earlier this month, it updated its proprietary offering for easier integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and MS Exchange.

Not a bad relationship for its new parent company to inherit.

An attractive acquisition target for the bigger players in the enterprise content management space because of their success in both the healthcare and banking industries, the purveyors of the OnBase document management solution have gone in a different direction and agreed to be acquired by a private equity firm.

Autonomy, an enterprise infrastructure software purveyor, has just announced its purchase of ZANTAZ, which specializes in content archiving and e-discovery solutions software.

The pairing is expected to "redefine" information risk management by combining e-discovery, analytics, real-time policy management and consolidated archiving into one system.

UK-based SDL International, a leading provider of Global Information Management (GIM) solutions, has solidified an agreement with Tridion, a leading provider of enterprise Web CMS solutions. The EU€ 69 million agreement awaits shareholder approval but is expected to augment the breadth and offerings of SDL's info management solutions significantly.