Business Objects added to its SaaS (software-as-a-service) arsenal Thursday by acquiring Nsite Software, a SaaS platform and applications developer. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Nsite, based in Pleasanton, Calif., makes an online application development tool that enables users to construct and customize simple hosted applications. It also offers hosted applications to extend CRM functionality, including a quote and proposal generation tool and a channel management application for managing leads, deals registration, price quotes and partner workflow. Nsite's add-ons integrate with hosted CRM offerings from Siebel and Salesforce.com.
Business Objects was attracted both to Nsite's technology and its user base of 27,000 subscribers, according to Steve Lucas, Business Objects' vice president of on-demand software and services. The two companies had an existing technology partnership.
"We were drawn to the relatively sizable number of subscribers," Lucas said. "That was very interesting to us given how BI-centric [Nsite's] applications are."
Business Objects, which has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif. and Paris, is a SaaS believer working to expand its hosted offerings. In April, it launched its first SaaS product, a hosted version of its Crystal Reports software. That service now has 7,000 subscribers, Business Objects said.
Business Objects plans to use Nsite's platform to meet customer and partner demands for tools to customize Business Objects' SaaS offerings, Lucas said.
"We made this decision with partners in mind. In 2007, we want to give partners the ability to extend our on-demand applications," he said. "We realized that to scale very aggressively we needed some platform elements that our CrystalReports.com customers were asking for."
Business Objects plans to continue selling Nsite's hosted applications. It is also readying more products for its SaaS portfolio. Next year, the company will introduce hosted services that go beyond reporting to meet customers' query and analytics needs, Lucas said.
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