Vignette To Acquire Epicentric For $32 Million

"We think it's a game-changing acquisition," said Thomas Hogan, president and CEO of Vignette, Austin.

Hogan said the combination of Vignette's Web content management technology and Epicentric's portal technology positions the company as a platform for enterprise Web-based applications for what he calls the "realtime enterprise."

Michael Porter, managing director of content management solutions for Perficient, a solution provider based in Austin, called the acquisition "a very smart move.

"A lot of our customers are clamoring for portals, and the first thing they say is 'I need content management.' The two are definitely going together," Porter said. "And kudos to Vignette for getting a good portal play."

The acquisition is expected to close in December, and Vignette plans to come out with a fully integrated product by the second quarter of next year, Hogan said.

Michael Crosno, chairman, president and CEO of Epicentric, will run all customer-facing operations for Vignette after the acquisition closes. Hogan did not specify what Crosno's exact title would be.

In a conference call, Crosno, who apparently initiated the merger discussions, said remaining a pure-play portal coming would be a slow death march as the market evolves.

He said customers today are looking to work with a reduced number of vendors and are looking to build composite applications on their infrastructure. He also said they are skeptical that major infrastructure vendors can deliver the capabilities they need to quickly build applications.

"The combination of these two companies allow our customers to build applications, deliver applications and maintain applications for a lot less money than now," he said.