eAIJ: Given this focus, what companies did you target?

Green: We identified several key pieces of technology we thought were highly complementary to what we did, and we went shopping for them. All three acquisitions were relatively small companies with strong technology. We did not go after a large market presence or a big name; we went after technology and technologists with skills in areas complementary to ours. We also looked closely at geography. All parts of ActiveWorks have to work together cohesively. It was important to us that the engineers could communicate with each other effectively; being in the same time zone was important. The first acquisition that met these criteria was Alier, which we saw had great technology for data transformation and data mapping. Although they applied this to the financial community, we saw in their tools something that could be applied to all our customers, so we thought we could achieve greater leverage out of their technology. We will, of course, continue to support their financial customers, but we think this data-mapping technology is the right size, shape, and architecture to fit perfectly with ActiveWorks. We’ve already integrated their product with ours and now we’re making it available to our professional service people in various engagements.

eAIJ: Why did you acquire TransLink?

Green: We wanted to announce this mainframe acquisition on the same day we announced our B2B offering because we felt that B2B is not about simply moving XML documents (although we embody a huge amount of XML capability in our product). B2B is actually bringing a business into the network. Even today, 70 percent of data resides on mainframes and 83 percent of transactions are executed against mainframes. How can you talk about business and not incorporate the mainframe as part of your solution? We had some significant CICS capabilities within Active Software, but the TransLink people also have some significant IMS capabilities. So we now have both CICS and IMS covered and we have a staff of people focused exclusively on mainframe capabilities. That’s a strong differentiator.

eAIJ: So the acquisition of TransLink was to strengthen your end-to-end capabilities?

Green: Exactly.

eAIJ: What was the reason behind buying Premier Corp.?

Green: Premier Corp. is local to us and we’ve been working with them for several years. They have a professional services group that has done some excellent and successful implementations of Active Software at various customer sites, so they know our product well and they have B2C and Web-facing technology that looked strong to us. They have actually built a Web adapter in ActiveWorks, so we can automatically transform Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) information into application-specific formats as it moves across the network and interfaces with popular Web servers.

eAIJ: What can Active do now that you couldn’t do before making these acquisitions?

Green: We’ve managed to put together EAI plus B2B plus B2C with access all the way through from the Web to the mainframe, in one cohesive system, supplied by one vendor, supported by one support organization. In addition to the acquisitions, don’t overlook the significant investment we made in the Business Exchange Server in the B2B market. The growth and revenue projections for the B2B market are substantial. We think there’s really only one market. It might be application integration within a company or between companies, but it all has to do with how you leverage the network for business purposes. Our significant investment in the B2B area, as well as strengthening various parts of our product offering through acquisitions and internal development, will contribute to the overall success of the company.

eAIJ: Is it a fair summary to say that your approach with these acquisitions is to buy technology and skills, rather than market share?

Green: Yes. Last year, we grew 262 percent. Clearly, we’re taking some market share from others, but grabbing early market share is not the name of the game. Preparing yourself to be able to handle customer problems down the road is really the key issue.