Jun, 2003 : SWsoft Buys Plesk, Yippi-Yeah! Automation Firms
📅 - Hosting automation firm SWsoft (sw-soft.com) said today it had acquiredPlesk (plesk.com) and Yippi-Yeah!E-Business GmbH (yippi-yeah.com), bothautomation companies, for an undisclosed amount. Terms of the deals were notdisclosed.
The combined company claims to have trumped Ensim as the largest provider ofsoftware automation products in the world, with 30,000 servers running SWSoft software, and 3,000 Web hosts using company's products. According toEnsim, the company has 12,000 customers, but wouldn't elaborate whetherthose are servers under management or stand alone Web hosts to preventuneven or unfair comparisons.
According to SWsoft, both the Plesk name and Yippi-Yeah!'s Confixx brandname will be retained.
Insiders that track the hosting software industry expect SWsoft and Plesk toreach profitability by year-end at the latest, with Yippi-Yeah! furtherenhancing SWsoft's financial performance. SWsoft and Plesk were apparentlyvery close to breaking even at the time of transaction, and will fix theirbalance sheet by using each others' resources for growth, according tosources.
"We would have been profitable right now if it weren't for [the] FeaturePrice disintegration, since they were our biggest North American revenuegenerator," said Serguei Beloussov, SWsoft co-founder and chief executive,who will retain his title following the transactions. Feature Price was soldto Atlantic.Net in late May after experiencing customer service issues andapparently ceasing support operations.
There are several synergies between SWsoft and Plesk, including the factthat both outfits have R&D facilities in Russia and headquarters/salesoperations in the United States. The combined company has moved itsheadquarters to a new office in Washington D.C., has shut down Plesk'sVirginia headquarters and plans to convert SWsoft's Silicon Valley locationinto a sales office.
According to the companies, Plesk chief executive Dmitri Simonenko willretain an executive vice president position with SWsoft, with certainprojects becoming cross-pollinated by both teams. Yippi-Yeah! will retainits German facilities, with a plan to rename the firm SWsoft Europe sometime in the future.
Due to a recently announced reseller agreement, Plesk and SWsoft havealready started merging their product line. According to the companies, noproducts are planned for retirement, and the companies said there willinitially be no changes to product names. On the product line level, SWsoftnow has two control panels, a virtual private server in Virtuozzo and a fullbusiness cycle hosting automation product in HSPComplete.
SWsoft's acquisition spree was made possible in part by S&W Group, theholding company behind SWsoft, which is engaged in a variety of businessesin South East Asia and Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States.Some of the companies which make up the holding include Acronis, a storageand PC utilities software company; Solomon Software, an ERP softwaremarketer as well as sales and development organization for Microsoft; andseveral companies engaged in TV and other consumer electronics manufacturingunder LG and Rolsen brands. The latter group of companies generates $300million a year and has been founded, originally managed and is currentlyowned by SWsoft chief executive Beloussov. The business is expected to reacha billion dollars in revenues within the next few years, allowing executiveslike Beloussov to fund strategic investments into niche industries likehosting automation.
The combined company claims to have trumped Ensim as the largest provider ofsoftware automation products in the world, with 30,000 servers running SWSoft software, and 3,000 Web hosts using company's products. According toEnsim, the company has 12,000 customers, but wouldn't elaborate whetherthose are servers under management or stand alone Web hosts to preventuneven or unfair comparisons.
According to SWsoft, both the Plesk name and Yippi-Yeah!'s Confixx brandname will be retained.
Insiders that track the hosting software industry expect SWsoft and Plesk toreach profitability by year-end at the latest, with Yippi-Yeah! furtherenhancing SWsoft's financial performance. SWsoft and Plesk were apparentlyvery close to breaking even at the time of transaction, and will fix theirbalance sheet by using each others' resources for growth, according tosources.
"We would have been profitable right now if it weren't for [the] FeaturePrice disintegration, since they were our biggest North American revenuegenerator," said Serguei Beloussov, SWsoft co-founder and chief executive,who will retain his title following the transactions. Feature Price was soldto Atlantic.Net in late May after experiencing customer service issues andapparently ceasing support operations.
There are several synergies between SWsoft and Plesk, including the factthat both outfits have R&D facilities in Russia and headquarters/salesoperations in the United States. The combined company has moved itsheadquarters to a new office in Washington D.C., has shut down Plesk'sVirginia headquarters and plans to convert SWsoft's Silicon Valley locationinto a sales office.
According to the companies, Plesk chief executive Dmitri Simonenko willretain an executive vice president position with SWsoft, with certainprojects becoming cross-pollinated by both teams. Yippi-Yeah! will retainits German facilities, with a plan to rename the firm SWsoft Europe sometime in the future.
Due to a recently announced reseller agreement, Plesk and SWsoft havealready started merging their product line. According to the companies, noproducts are planned for retirement, and the companies said there willinitially be no changes to product names. On the product line level, SWsoftnow has two control panels, a virtual private server in Virtuozzo and a fullbusiness cycle hosting automation product in HSPComplete.
SWsoft's acquisition spree was made possible in part by S&W Group, theholding company behind SWsoft, which is engaged in a variety of businessesin South East Asia and Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States.Some of the companies which make up the holding include Acronis, a storageand PC utilities software company; Solomon Software, an ERP softwaremarketer as well as sales and development organization for Microsoft; andseveral companies engaged in TV and other consumer electronics manufacturingunder LG and Rolsen brands. The latter group of companies generates $300million a year and has been founded, originally managed and is currentlyowned by SWsoft chief executive Beloussov. The business is expected to reacha billion dollars in revenues within the next few years, allowing executiveslike Beloussov to fund strategic investments into niche industries likehosting automation.
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URL source: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/sws060903.cfm
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