JSE-listed Enterprise Outsourcing Holdings (EOH) has announced the completion of the cash acquisition of enterprise systems company Softworx (formerly Baan SA) for an undisclosed sum.
The deal, which was effective since late last year, sees outsourcing company EOH wholly owning Softworx, which is the sole local representative of business application packages for Baan, including recently launched iBaan, CODA (financial systems) and Clarus (e-commerce software).
EOH also has an application service provider outsourcing agreement with rival solutions provider JD Edwards, but the company sees no conflict of interests.
In a previous interview with ITWeb, Softworx MD Gary Lawrence said two separate divisions of EOH will handle the two competing solutions, noting that he views this as healthy competition.
British company Invensys acquired Baan in August 2000 and predicted a return to profitability for the embattled company by later this year.
Baan has exceeded this target, with figures for the third quarter to December showing sales growth increasing by 37% to $100 million and licence revenues trebling to $32 million, effectively putting the company back in the black.
"It is EOH`s objective to grow our enterprise business solution offering and the acquisition of Softworx is in line with this strategy. Softworx`s impressive client base on the one hand, and the extensive skill base of its employees on the other, fits perfectly with our core business and will further enhance our growth in the enterprise systems arena," says Asher Bohbot, CEO of EOH.
"The SA IT industry needs consolidation and the enterprise resource planning landscape is no exception. We are confident that this move will be positive for our existing customers, who will now have the option to upgrade their service offerings to include customer relationship management, e-commerce solutions, a wide variety of outsourcing models, application service provision and consulting services," concludes Jane Thomson, Softworx director.
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