Metalogix Acquires Axceler's SharePoint Business
Looking to round out its SharePoint migration and management platform, Metalogix Software Corp. today said it has acquired Axceler's SharePoint software business. The deal makes Metalogix one of the largest independent SharePoint ISVs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Metalogix is assuming ownership of the entire Axceler brand and SharePoint software portfolio. Neither company will have a stake in the other.
What remains of Axceler is its Lotus Notes business and new suite of enterprise social media management tools called ViewPoint, launched earlier this year for Yammer and Salesforce.com Chatter environments, among others. Axeler CEO Michael Alden said on a conference call this morning that the company will unveil a new name next week.
It appears Metalogix CEO Steven Murphy wanted to keep his company focused purely on SharePoint migration and administration. By acquiring Axceler's SharePoint governance and permissions tools, it gives Metalogix a much broader offering, said Forrester Research analyst Alan Weintraub.
"The portfolio is larger which gives Metalogix a broader opportunity in the market," Weintraub said. "Metalogix growth was restricted by the limited amounts of capabilities they were delivering and their acquisition has allowed them to grow without completely overlapping."
While Axceler brings 3,000 new customers and 70 employees to Metalogix, Weintraub said this deal wasn't about bringing in new customers. Rather it was to allow Metalogix to expand into the important area of governance and permissions management, which complements its existing archiving and capacity management suite.
One area both companies overlap is SharePoint migration. Metalogix offers its Metalogix Migration Manager included in its Content Matrix suite while Axceler offers ControPoint. In an interview Murphy said Metalogix will wean new customers toward Metalogix Migration Manager product but will continue to support the Axceler ControlPoint tool and may issue some updates.
"There's not going to be a strategic roadmap on the ControlPoint Migrator but we'll continue to issue enhancements and support as necessary as that installed base is migrated to the Content Matrix platform," Murphy said. "We don't sunset products in this market, we provide enough functionality in the next releases that people move forward to the new platforms. Microsoft helps with that with their migrations [new releases]. They kind of force everyone to move forward."
Murphy said the two companies already have many common customers and Metalogix was constantly hearing that governance is a key concern among SharePoint customers. "It's the SharePoint governance and administration features that overwhelmingly our customers are looking for, that it made sense to link up with our migration, upgrade and ongoing management capabilities of Content Matrix," Murphy said.
The combined company will have over 13,000 customers and 250 employees. Murphy said Axceler customers will immediately have access to its 24x7 live telephone support service.
Among the 70 employees moving from Axceler to Metalogix is Christian Buckley, a SharePoint MVP and evangelist who is widely regarded in the SharePoint community. "There are a lot of interesting integration stories and products in the pipeline," he said.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 08/28/2013 at 12:44 PM