GROUP Business Software Acquires IT Factory Assets

Frankfurt/New York – February 25, 2009 – GROUP Business Software AG, the world’s largest provider of business solutions built on IBM Lotus software, announced today that it has executed a contract to acquire all of the intellectual property rights and related tangible assets of Denmark-based IT Factory A/S in bankruptcy. The key element of the acquisition is the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) technology for cloud-based computing. This technology will rapidly enable GROUP to offer its current solutions in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. With this acquisition, GROUP will extend its market-leading position and portfolio of solutions, while simultaneously propelling it into one of the fastest growing areas in information technology with an innovative and robust on-demand offering. 

Prior to this acquisition, the delivery model for GROUP’s business solutions focused around traditional on-premise implementation. With increasing inquiries from the company’s customer base and new prospects for SaaS solutions, this acquisition is key to the company’s growth strategy — allowing GROUP to deliver its solutions to a growing number of organizations that are looking to the cloud to gain momentum when deploying business applications. 

Analysts have predicted that by 2011, between 20-25% of all software will be purchased via a SaaS model. Given that there will continue to be strong demand for traditional on-premise options, GROUP will be able to serve a greater share of the market regardless of a customer’s preferences for on-premise installation or a cloud-based delivery model. 

Additionally important for the acquisition are the Lotus-based IT Factory suite of applications which include customer relationship management (CRM), human resource management (HRM) and a development framework. The assets also include Report Factory, a business intelligence (BI) application. 

“The integration of the IT factory’s Lotus-based solutions into our portfolio is another step in our Lotus software application market consolidation strategy, to ensure our customers compelling, robust and efficient solutions in the Lotus environment. The platform technology acquisition is synergistic with every aspect of our corporate strategy. The opportunity to offer our products in an SaaS model is naturally aligned with our commitment to the Lotus brand and will serve to eliminate hurdles companies may face in acquiring world-class business solutions – that’s what ‘simplified’ is all about in our taglines,” says Jörg Ott, the company’s CEO and chairman. 

For further information please contact itfactory@group.de