SAP has made a bid to acquire Crossgate, a supplier of hosted business-to-business networking software and services with which SAP already has a close relationship.
SAP expects to complete the acquisition by Nov. 1, pending regulatory approvals by antitrust authorities. The cost of the acquisition and other details were not disclosed.
Crossgate's B2B and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services helps businesses communicate and conduct transactions with customers and supply chain partners. The services let companies, both large corporations and SMBs, send and receive electronic orders and invoices without having to set up their own complex, expensive EDI networks.
Crossgate has long been a player in the SAP ecosystem, offering SAP-specific services such as the SAP E-Invoicing for Compliance that was launched in June. SAP acquired a financial stake in the Munich, Germany-based company in October 2008 and became a global reseller of Crossgate's B2B engine and other software in February 2010.
"Companies live in an evolving global network of customers and partners, and technology from Crossgate allows them to interact in new ways at the enterprise level in the same way that social networking has transformed the way people interact as individuals," said Peter Maier, general manager, SAP's head of Line of Business Solutions, in a statement.
"By acquiring Crossgate's highly differentiated solution, we help our customers extend their end-to-end business processes running on SAP to their customers and partners. As a result, thousands of SAP customers will join the network to exchange information easier, execute transactions faster and collaborate better."
