At press time—Stellent acquires Optika

Underscoring the continued consolidation among the content and business process management vendors, Stellent, at press time, announced its merger with mid-range imaging and COLD vendor Optika. Specifically, the deal stipulates that Stellent acquires all outstanding shares of Optika for $10 million in cash, approximately 4.1 million shares of Stellent common stock and the assumption by Stellent of Optika's outstanding options.

"Combining revenue—approximately $90 million per year—will offer the new ISV needed critical mass," notes Connie Moore, VP, Forrester Research. "However, as the ECM market consolidates and IT infrastructure companies move in, Stellent must grow even larger to remain a significant force."

The acquisition is good news for both companies, Moore adds, because it delivers strong integration possibilities between core products and other applications from ERP vendors. She also points out that Optika provides Stellent with a stronger play in business process management (BPM), a competitive differentiator for ECM vendors.

Furthermore, Moore notes, the Optika distribution channel—primarily VARS and integrators historically—will now leverage Stellent's direct sales force ... and vice versa.

Says IDC's Sue Feldman, "Stellent's acquisition of Optika is important to its survival because it broadens the set of features Stellent can offer, and it gives them a larger presence in the market through the acquisition of a solid additional set of customers. It is important from a market perspective for several reasons. The first is that, in order to survive the current market consolidation (over 50 mergers/acquisitions in the past year and a half), Stellent needed to increase its size, and its acquisition of Optika accomplishes this.

"The second is that the combined product will address the need to unify data from transactions with the content in content management systems," she adds. "IDC's surveys are finding that unified access to all enterprise information is the top reason that customers are investing in content management and retrieval applications. In providing features that unify data and content, Stellent will be able to distinguish itself from its competitors.

"It appears that the acquisition provides complementary capabilities that will unite in a very attractive product. In addition, both vendors now market to departmental and medium-sized business markets that are somewhat underserved by the other major content management vendors."