Chicago — March 25, 2003 — Click Commerce, a provider of partner relationship management (PRM) software, has reached an agreement in principle to acquire channel management specialist Allegis Corp. in a move that one analyst firm views as indicative of the future direction of PRM applications.
The combination will bring together Click's commerce and aftermarket service offering with Allegis' strengths in marketing and partner management. Click said in a statement that the acquisition would allow it to extend its reach into the high technology and financial services markets. The purchase adds such companies as Charles Schwab, Dow Corning, Lexmark and Microsoft to Click's existing client roster, which includes such manufacturers as Delphi, Emerson, Kawasaki, Lincoln Electric and York.
Michael Ferro, chairman and CEO of Click Commerce, believes the combination of the two companies will click on several levels. "Not only are our product strengths complementary but also the vertical market expertise of the two companies provides us with new opportunities to cross-sell our respective products," Ferro explained. "In addition, our products are both built on Microsoft's .NET technology, enabling us to quickly and easily integrate the two solutions."
Louis Columbus, senior analyst at AMR Research, said the acquisition portends the future of PRM. "First, there's great platform-level consistency, followed by a strong legacy on Click Commerce's part of excelling at developing and delivering service lifecycle management applications, and Allegis' dominance in lead management, escalation and measuring financial performance by channel," Columbus said. "It's clearly an acquisition that signals what PRM applications will need to look like to fully capitalize on what the future requires."
Founded in 1998, San Francisco-based Allegis Corp. is a privately held company. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.