Byrne Tony Byrne

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BroadVision Goes Private

28-Jul-2005

Tags: Portals and Content Integration, Web Content Management, Selecting Technology, Vendor Viability & Financials, Broadvision Portal, Interwoven TeamSite, OpenText Portal

Running short of cash and struggling under a debt load, BroadVision has agreed to be purchased by a private equity firm. Most analysts already considered BroadVision on life support, although founder Pehong Chen kept the firm chugging while casting about for potential suitors. I think it's indicative of what can happen to diversified (BroadVision has focused variously on CMS, CRM, and Portals) software firms that run out of, well, runway. Software companies can often survive on maintenance streams, but Broadvision's maintenance income dropped ominously from 2004 to 2005. BroadVision's new owners will presumably shed costs and modules to make the company more focused and acquirable. I disagree that this is the forerunner of consolidation to come, at least in the CMS/Portal space near-term. Smaller ECM vendors like Interwoven and Vignette may have weak earnings, but they still sport strong balance sheets, and therefore have less urgency than BroadVision to find an exit.

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