Vitria, an e-business integration platform provider, Monday unveiled plans to acquire XMLSolutions, a company that provides EDI-to-XML and XML-to-XML translation software, for $15 million.
The acquisition was expected to close in early April.
According to Vitria, based here, and McLean, Va.-based XMLSolutions, the move will enable solution providers to help companies with an investment in EDI leverage that investment to connect legacy systems with systems using XML to transport data. It also will give solution providers an end-to-end platform for providing integrated B2B solutions to companies and vertical industries using EDI, they say.
Integrating legacy systems with more leading-edge, technology-based systems is key for the promise of seamless, end-to-end B2B transactions with multiple trading partners and customers to take place, say industry watchers.
Last month, e-business platform vendor IONA Technologies gave a similar boost to this promise when it agreed to acquire NetFish Technologies, which also provides XML-based integration software.
John Rymer, founder and president of Upstream Communications, an Emeryville, Calif.-based IT business consulting firm, says the union of e-business platform technology and XML-based integration software will help solution providers solve the problem of integration across disparate systems in B2B transactions.
"The B2B problem cannot be separated from internal systems," Rymer says. "Now the market is moving to address integration in the larger context."
Rymer says that context takes into consideration legacy systems within a company as well as systems based on newer technologies, such as XML and Java.
"[The industry is addressing] systems that are inside a company as well, such as an ERP system [that] generates a purchase order that then is translated into an XML document and shipped out to a trading partner," Rymer says. "That level of integration is the next stage of the [B2B integration] market."
