Citrix Systems Wednesday revealed plans to complement its application server business with a portal focus by acquiring Sequoia Software, maker of XML-based portal software.
Citrix plans to acquire Columbia, Md.-based Sequoia in an all-cash transaction valued at $184.6 million. Under terms of the deal, Citrix will purchase all of the outstanding shares of Sequoia common stock for $5.64 per share.
Mark Templeton, president of Citrix, based here, said the addition of Sequoia will further extend Citrix' capabilities to include Web content, and complete the company's strategy to deliver application services beyond its Windows base and onto Unix and the Web.
"Historically, most of our customers have used our software to deploy Windows applications, and that is still true today," Templeton said in a statement. "But with the explosion of bandwidth and connectivity brought about by the Internet, plus Web technologies such as Java and HTML, we believe CIOs are looking for flexibility to choose the right combination of Windows and Web applications to best suit their needs."
In addition, Templeton said, "this move will be instrumental in helping our channel deepen their customer relationships and grow their integration and implementation revenues."
David Weiss, vice president of marketing at Citrix, in a statement said the combination of Citrix' MetaFrame XP application server technology and Sequoia's XPS portal software provides enterprise customers the ability, "to look to our systems integrators and channel partners as a single source for two key parts of their strategic applications platform."
During a conference call Wednesday morning, John Cunningham, CFO at Citrix, said he expects the deal to close in the second quarter of 2001. "Our 7,000 VARs and partners will benefit from this combination," he added.
Also during the call, Templeton said the deal gives Citrix, "more product offerings that extend our offerings into the Web and to Microsoft's .Net."
"Sequoia's tools are purely XML-based and this allows us to add value to Microsoft's .Net by natively supporting Microsoft's UDDI, SOAP and BizTalk technologies," Templeton said.
The acquisition and addition of the Sequoia products also will "allow our channel to bring more pieces of the solution to the table," he said. "This increases the size of their average sale and expands their services business." The acquisition also will enable Citrix to "partner further" with systems integrators, Templeton said.
