Update: Stellent To Buy Optika , iPhrase Takes Banter In Consolidation

With the ink barely dry on other content management merger agreements, Stellent plans to buy Optika in a stock and cash deal valued at about $59 million. And iPhrase Technologies, a provider of natural language search technology, bought Banter Technologies, a maker of automated e-mail and voice-response systems.

In theory, the Stellent deal would combine Stellent's Universal Content Management architecture with Optika's expertise in image management and business process management, the companies said Monday.

Optika's strengths lie in transactional content management,systems typically used with accounts payable-type applications while while Stellent focused more on dynamic document management, said Dan Ryan, executive vice president of marketing and business development with Stellent, Eden Prairie, Minn.

Stellent is paying $10 million in cash and about 4.1 million shares of Stellent's common stock. Terms of the iPhrase/Banter acquisition were not disclosed.

Mark Ruport, president and CEO of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Optika, will become a Stellent executive vice president, and Optika board member Alan Menkes will join Stellent's board.

The deal is part of a continuing flow of mergers and acquisitions in content management. Last May, Optika itself bought Select Technologies, a records management developer based in Boise, Idaho. In August, Stellent acquired digital asset management technology from Ancept. More recently, EMC acquired Documentum and IBM Software bought up Green Pasture. For more on EMC consolidation, see CRN.

Banter Technologies specializes in automated e-mail response and customer service applications and works closely with CRM vendors who bundle its technology. iPhrase is based in Cambridge, Mass. Banter is located in San Francisco, with other R&D in Israel. Terms of the iPhrase purchase were not disclosed.

Stellent and Optika expect the deal will close in April 2004.