TRENDS

June 10, 2003

Mergers and acquisitions continue to have a significant impact on our lists of leading service providers and enablers. Few transactions have been bigger than last week's announced marriage between independent software vendors (ISVs) PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards (see Merger Creates Business Software Giant).

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The deal is relevant to the ASP industry because both PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards have longstanding relationships with enterprise ASPs. Consequently, each company also occupies a spot on our listing of leading service enablers.

The acquisition appears to make sense as the ISVs target different segments. PeopleSoft specializes in larger enterprises and services such as HR and J.D. Edwards is strong in the mid-market with manufacturing applications.

Adding a dramatic twist, Oracle entered the scene intent to disrupt the proceedings with a $5.1 billion takeover bid of PeopeSoft (see Oracle Offers to Buy PeopleSoft for $5.1 Billion)

On Again With Onyx
All this moving and shaking with ISV heavyweights creates an opening on our list of Top 30 Enablers. That spot is filled by Onyx, a customer relationship management (CRM) software provider. If you are gettting a feeling of deja vu, it's not you. Onyx was a fixture on the list until February 2002. At that time, we moved the company off the listing saying that although it "continued to support ASP partners, its commitment no longer stands significantly above that of many of its peers in the software industry."

Sixteen months later, Onyx now does stands significantly above the field. Its re-architected Net-native software powers IBM's utility-based CRM offering. Onyx dubbed the new Web-services-based offering its Embedded CRM Platform. The integration platform allows partners to incorporate business process level functionality into their own application services.

All Is Well With the ASP List
While we have no changes for the Providers list this month, several companies — including RecruitSoft and Dorado — stand poised to move onto the list should one of our Top 20 stumble or become part of the merger & acquisition trend.

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