ANN ARBOR, Michigan, August 5, 2003—The PLM industry took another step along the path of consolidation today as Agile Software Corporation announced their acquisition of Eigner, Inc. This acquisition brings together two significant players in the PLM industry, and two firms with widely differing backgrounds. We are optimistic about this action, even though there are some clear issues that must be resolved for the new Agile to be successful. The resulting firm should provide a much broader mark on the industry than either of them could have produced individually.
Eigner has been addressing the PLM industry since their founding in Germany in the mid-1980’s. They have been known for their focus on situations involving complex product configurations and sophisticated integrations with multiple MCAD and ECAD design environments. Eigner has traditionally been strong in Europe, primarily in central Europe, and have concentrated in the last few years in broadening their limited presence in North America. They have an excellent reputation for solid customer support, and we expect this strength to carry forward into the new organization.
Agile, founded in the mid-1990’s, was initially focused on electronics-based industries and the problems of releasing engineering designs into manufacturing, with a significant presence in North America and expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. Their focus has broadened since then, but that initial concentration facilitated their early differentiation in the industry, and contributed substantially to their success. As they have expanded their industry and geographic focus over recent years, they have begun to expand their product functionality to cover more of today’s PLM vision.
In Agile’s announcement, they identified complementary strengths with Eigner in industry focus, geographic coverage, and product footprint. We certainly agree with these comments. However, delivering seamlessly integrated complementary products is significantly different from just having a complementary footprint. Agile’s precise plan for future product development has yet to be completed and released, and we are anxious to see this developed as soon as possible to get a better understanding of their roadmap for both architecture and functionality.
We understand that current customers of the product suites from both Agile and Eigner will continue to be fully supported, and that both product suites will continue to be enhanced and supported for the foreseeable future. Clearly, the objective is to take advantage of the knowledge and developments that both Agile and Eigner have accumulated, to result in an enhanced and converged program in the future. This presents a nice opportunity for them, but offers a substantial challenge as well as they support multiple product lines at the same time that they are investing in developing their new converged suite.
The combined organization should have a much broader knowledge and coverage of both geographies and industries. Along with this, its greater resources should provide significant benefits to its customers. A challenge will be their ability to take advantage of these potential strengths. The combined organization will certainly face the trauma that normally accompanies acquisitions and mergers; they won’t be immune to these issues. These two groups have their own cultures and people, and the success of the new combined firm will ultimately rest on the ability to manage this transition effectively.
In summary, both Agile and Eigner have demonstrated solid skills and successes over the past few years. This acquisition offers an opportunity for them to take advantage of their differing but complementary capabilities to create a broader, more substantial, and successful organization going into the future. Our concerns include their ability to manage the stress of the organizational merger, and the development of a clear evolutionary path for the architecture and capabilities of their new product portfolio. However, we see this acquisition as a very positive move for the industry, and for both Agile and Eigner and their respective customer bases. We look forward to its impact on the PLM industry.
