Blog: Craig Schiff

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Extensity (Geac) Acquires Systems Union

In case you missed it Geac (along with its former Comshare product line) became Extensity earlier this year. Now, the venture-backed entity has made a significant acquisition: Systems Union. Clearly they are following an 'assembler' strategy to build a bigger, better, and more competitive company. Our research and field work supports this strategy. Purchasers of business performance management favor the vendors with more complete offerings, even if they don't require all of the pieces today. This combination takes Geac from being a pure applications BPM vendor to an applications and tools vendor, not unlike Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion, and SAS. In addition, it gives them a broader geographic reach as U.K.-based Systems Union had significant success outside of the U.S. On the downside, there is significant overlap in their product lines. While they have vowed to continue to support overlapping products, my question is: when someone wants budgeting for example, which product will they lead with? That will determine ongoing investment in the various products. While overall a good deal for potential purchasers and existing customers, it does take Extensity from the unified solution camp of Longview, OutlookSoft and others, into the realm of the integration-challenged, both at a product level and company level. For their own take on the merger read the release.

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