Dimension Data unit Britehouse has completed its acquisition of Firestring, which it bought for an undisclosed amount.
Britehouse CEO Scott Gibson says the company was attracted to Firestring because it provides an entry into the “social operating system” from an enterprise perspective. He explains the system ties into its Microsoft, SAP and mobile offerings.
Britehouse has traditionally invested in the Microsoft and SAP enterprise space, says Gibson. Speaking on the side lines of the Gartner Symposium, in Cape Town, he said the group wants to expand into the small and medium area in the future.
The company's current investments include 3fifteen Technologies, Auto-Mate, Britehouse Mobility Solutions, and its specialist SAP division. It also has a joint venture with Dimension Data, Dimension Data Application Management Solutions.
Gibson explains that Gartner's trend for this year's symposium - the nexus - validates its belief that the way people work is changing. Gartner says social, mobile, cloud computing and information forces are converging to form what it has termed the 'nexus'.
Expanding reach
Firestring is a Web 2 technology company, which has linked a semantic search engine and social media offering to facilitate the search for unstructured data in organisations.
Britehouse says it offers Firestring access to a large enterprise customer base and, at some stage, he sees its products being taken to NTT's customer base. Dimension Data was de-listed at the end of 2010 after being bought out by Japan-based NTT.
Buying Firestring also elevates Britehouse's Microsoft capabilities, says Gibson. He sees Microsoft being a strong player in the enterprise space in the next two to three years, and is keen to make more acquisitions in that niche.
Gibson also envisages bolstering its information capabilities and moving more strongly into the cloud arena through acquisitions.
Firestring was founded in 2009 in SA as a technology company by Alison Jacobson and Tal Nathan. It was driven by a vision to build Web 2-type functionality specifically for the enterprise.
Jacobson, who is also Firestring's CEO, says she is not sure the company could have gained the traction it needed if it continued to go it alone. Britehouse moves its offerings into the mainstream, she notes.
Firestring initially built its social media network product that can be implemented behind the corporate firewall and used by companies for specific business objectives. It then linked its semantic engine, Serendipity, to the offering to facilitate the search for unstructured data within the organisation.
The semantic engine is capable of creating automated meta-data tags for content across the enterprise.
* Nicola Mawson is hosted at the symposium courtesy of Gartner.
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