IBM on Thursday said it plans to acquire FileNet, a document management and business process management software vendor, in an all-cash deal valued at $1.6 billion–IBM’s 20th acquisition since February around its “information on demand” strategy.
FileNet, based in Costa Mesa, Calif., had $421.8 million in revenues for 2005, up 6% compared with the prior year. The company, founded in 1982, has 1,695 employees. FileNet claims to have more than 4,300 customers.
The acquisition, which the companies expect to close in the fourth quarter of 2006, is subject to approval by FileNet shareholders as well as regulatory bodies.
Once the deal is completed, IBM plans to combine FileNet’s operations with IBM’s Content Management business in the Information Management unit, which is headed by general manager Ambuj Goyal.
“Freeing up information contained in content management systems is critical to unlocking the potential of information to improve business processes and performance,” Goyal said in a statement.
IBM also expects to integrate IBM’s business process management and service-oriented architecture technologies with FileNet’s products, and train both companies’ partner and services groups on the IBM and FileNet technologies.
The deal will put IBM in head-to-head competition with EMC in the content management market. EMC, predominantly a storage systems and software vendor, entered the content management space in 2003 with the $1.7 billion acquisition of Documentum.
