Content Management For Operational Efficiency
Symphony acquisition of Hummingbird announced last week was hurried by the need to raise a fast buck, admitted Sorkin, its Chairman and Co-Founder.
The announcement also coincided with the loss on behalf of an employee of Hummingbird, of a piece of equipment belonging to their clients TG , containing the names and Social Security numbers of around 10 percent of TG's clients. According to sources, the loss occurred on May 24, and the clients TG were notified by Hummingbird mid-afternoon Friday, May 26, the same day that the acquisition was announced.
Hummingbird is currently positioned as a leader in the Enterprise Content Management space, together with Documentum, Vignette, Filenet, but when it was founded was actually in the 'portal management software'.
Hummingbird seems to be making it a habit of hurrying things along. Also its Reddot acquisition last June was criticised for closing very quickly, less than two months for the whole deal.
Analysts and inverstors now are complaining that the board should have been fishing a little longer for better bids
But selling its shares for the highest price is not necessarily the primary goal of a technology company, and accepting the highest bid is not going to be necessarily the best choice for its long term.
Despite the fact that the mere announcement of the acquisition has caused a revaluation of 21 percent the company's shares, and that the proposed buy price of $26.75 a share, is a 16 per cent premium over last closing price and a 10 per cent premium above its average price over the last 30 trading days, as pointed out by the Globe and Mail , investors and analysts that are acting like agitators around the deal are being totally speculative with their expectations.
Symphony Technology is a a solution provider with a clear understanding of new technologies and their strategic use.
Hummingbird is (would be) the third acquisiton for Symphony this year, after buying Metreo, a provider of comprehensive pricing intelligence, optimization and execution solutions. and then of ImmediateFX, LLC (IFX), an analytics-based marketing services consultancy that delivers continuous marketing measurement solutions.
In uncertaint content management markets to find a buyer who understands the value of content in the business value chain, and that knows how to leverage content technology as part of business and organisational intelligence can be a lucky strike these days.
Content is going to be a key application layer in supporting distributed organisational processe.
In the long term, and in a highly competitive content management space where even the toughest players find it hard to keep the focus - being part of an enterpise with a broad vision could be a very valuable move for the company
I encourage investors and shareholders to back the decision of the board, stay well away from the greedy attitude of ignorant and arrogant Wall Street and to look ahead.
Paola Di Maio is a content management systems designer
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