Speculation on who will buy OpenText has been a consistent pastime for content management market analysts for at least the last three years. The latest reported on some of the financial wires is that Autonomy has amassed a $1bln war chest for a large buy with OpenText offered as a possible target. Who would have thought back in the day that technologies from Open Text, Interwoven, Vignette, Red Dot, Zantaz, PC Docs, Hummingbird, Artesia, Media Bin et.al. could all end up under the same corporate banner. Yeah – me neither.
The feature overlap within the two companies respective portfolios is well known but this deal would turn the Venn diagram of their products into a bubbly frenzy reminiscent of the Mentos/Diet Coke experiment. Pondering further as I look at market caps and the amount of cash in play, OT may not be the best target. For less money Autonomy could potentially acquire both Kofax and/or SDL.
Kofax is probably better positioned to be acquired and doesn’t significantly augment the overlap problem. SDL has overlap particularly in the WCMS space but brings its consolidated translation acquisitions and high-end publishing to the mix. Both SDL and Kofax are UK based like Autonomy with OT being Canadian. One might not think location matters much but it makes for a much easier transition from a corporate governance standpoint.
These are purely my own musings and I haven’t seen anything else tipped or timeline so guess I’ll go and buy some popcorn and wait for the show to start.