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DAT Group PLC acquires Synchronica GMBH April 04, 2005 [General] | By Edward J. R. DAT Group PLC has just announced their acquisition of Synchronica GMBH and DAT will add their OMA compliant DS/DM and FOTA servers to compliment DATs existing DMP platform which supports Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm devices. DAT has long time been a leader in the management of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, as well as developing major Windows Mobile applications such as Tesco Pocket Shopper and SMSBuddy. This acquisition is obviously a major consolidation in the Device Management and Synchronisation vendor space and enables DAT to offer end to end solutions for OTA device management, synchronisation and firmware updates. More information from DAT Group follows. * * * * * DAT GROUP PLC ACQUISITION OF SYNCHRONICA SOFTWARE GMBH AND BUYOUT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS TO SYNCHRONICA SOFTWARE PRODUCTS DAT Group plc ("DAT" or "the Company"), a developer and licenser of mobile device management software, announces the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of Synchronica Software GmbH ("Synchronica"), a Berlin based software company which has developed and, subject to the agreement with Ergon Informatik AG ("Ergon") referred to below, owns data synchronisation and device management software products. These products are complementary to the DAT Mobility Platform ("DMP") and are based on an industry standard called SyncML. Synchronica's products are already available on the market and work with OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) compliant devices. The technology that the Company has acquired through this acquisition will accelerate significantly the development and reach of the Tabella offering and broaden the DMP technology platform. In its simplest version, Tabella (using the recently acquired SyncML technology) will be aimed at the millions of users of mid range devices who have no way of backing up their contacts. It will also help DAT to address an even larger market for active data synchronisation and device management for large mobile phone operators. The consideration for the acquisition of Synchronica was 400,000 in cash paid on completion (31 March 2005), 100,000 in cash payable 12 months after the date of completion and the allotment to the vendors of options in respect of new Ordinary shares in DAT with a market value of 250,000. The cash consideration will be satisfied from the Company's existing cash resources. Agreement has also been reached for the variation of a contract between Synchronica and Ergon under which Ergon undertook to maintain and develop Synchronica's OMA Direct Sync software products in return for a 20% revenue share. This variation agreement became effective on completion of the acquisition of Synchronica. Under the variation agreement, Ergon vests with Synchronica all current and future rights to the OMA Direct Sync products' source codes worldwide. The variation agreement also eliminates Ergon's historic 20% licence revenue entitlement whilst ensuring that Synchronica continues to receive a 50% share of all licence fees resulting from sales by Ergon of SyncML-DS products. The consideration payable to Ergon under the agreement is 600,000, of which 400,000 was paid on completion of the acquisition of Synchronica out of the Company's existing cash reserves. Deferred consideration of 200,000 will be released in monthly instalments over the following 12 months subject to Ergon meeting commitments to supply further agreed developer time on the SyncML-DS products. Commenting on the transactions, David Hayes, DAT's Chief Executive, said "There is clear market demand for our DMP platform to include a SyncML capability. Synchronica brings DAT a suite of well regarded, live products which significantly extend DMP's reach and addressable market. The acquisition will help us to address, immediately, an area of growing importance for many of the large mobile phone operators - active data synchronisation and device management. Additionally, we expect the acquisition to accelerate the development and reach of our recently announced Tabella e-mail service. There is much work now to be done to integrate these products into our software solutions." For further information please visit www.datgroup.com. Credit: Tim Carmichael from DAT Group PLC.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later)
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