Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Jacada Ltd., a provider of unified desktop and process optimization solutions for customer service operations, has announced today the sale of the company’s applications modernization business to Software AG, a business infrastructure software company and the fifth largest software company in Europe.


The terms of the asset purchase agreement provide that Software AG will pay $26 million in cash to acquire select Jacada products and related customer contracts. While the agreement was entered into on December 19, 2007, the effective date of the transaction is January 1, 2008.

Jacada plans to sell to Software AG the intellectual property and related customer contracts associated with the following products: Jacada Terminal Emulator, Jacada Studio, Jacada Innovator, Jacada Interface Server and Jacada Integrator, also known as Jacada HostFuse.

Jacada retains the right to develop, market, sell and support Jacada Interface Server and Jacada HostFuse in support of its call center solutions business. The company also maintains the intellectual property rights for Jacada WorkSpace and Jacada WinFuse, and all rights to the Jacada brand and trademark.

"This transaction marks a major milestone in the transformation of Jacada and positions us to enter 2008 with a singular focus on our call center solutions business," said Paul O'Callaghan, president of Jacada, in a Thursday statement.

 

"During the past 3 years, our call center solutions business has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 61% and represents 95% of our $12.9 million backlog as of September 30, 2007. We expect that the growth we have seen in this business will continue at a similar pace throughout 2008.

”Our growing list of new customers and partners validates the market's need for and acceptance of our unified desktop and process automation solutions. We are excited to be in the position to capitalize on this new, high growth market," O’Callaghan added.

Software AG is also set to acquire select resources for the continued support, development and service delivery around those products and customer contracts.
Jacada has held a leadership position in the application modernization market for many years," said Karl-Heinz Streibich, chief executive officer at Software AG, in Thursday’s statement.

 

"We believe the excellent products and talented staff will be a tremendous complement to Software AG's portfolio. Modernization is just the first step in insuring that legacy applications play a full and productive roll in today's flexible IT infrastructures. We know that Jacada customers will benefit from our technology vision and continued product innovation."

"We believe our application modernization customers are in great hands with Software AG," said Gideon Hollander, chief executive officer of Jacada, in Thursday’s statement.

 

"We are working very hard to ensure a smooth transition and we feel confident that they will continue to receive excellent support and services going forward."

Mr. Hollander continued: "We believe that this is the beginning of a new chapter for Jacada. We are proud of the rapid, organic growth that we have achieved to date and look forward to continued success in executing our growth strategy and delivering compelling call center solutions to the marketplace."

This latest transaction for Jacada is the company’s attempt to focus on its core strengths in order to grow the company and achieve market dominance by streamlining operations. Software AG will certainly gain significant benefit from the acquisition of this specific Jacada portfolio. This brand strength will enable the provider to extend its reach into other markets, strengthening its positioning as well.