Why Adobe bought Omniture? Making sense where it seems to be none
Hello and sorry for this long long pause on the blog…
I have several post drafts but nothing so scooping as Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture.
You probably have read all about the deal on several financial, technology and web analytic blogs and sites (Forrester, WADemystified)
Yet I would still like to share with you 3 thoughts:
1) This past January WPP investes $25 million on Omniture at $8.76 per share, yesterday Adobe commenced a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Omniture for $21.50 per share in cash. Bravo for WPP that bought cheap and would sell at a nice price!
2) 2 weeks ago Adobe acquired a Business Content Management provider/company (BusinessCatalyst). On their website we can find the following product offer:
Build and manage their website
Write a blog and build a forum
Run an online shop and accept payments
Create email marketing campaigns
Build a customer database
Analyze and improve results
Can you see synergy with Omniture product suite? So, within the next 12 months I can see Adobe empowering BusinessCatalyst with FLASH/FLEX/AIR technologies and Omniture suite and reaching their clientes and partners with a SaaS offer.
3) Quite a long shot, but Adobe tried out the ads business with their Ads for pdf initiative. Their beta test program with selected publishers ended this past march. I have no news about the outcome of this experiment. But in case Adobe still is considering some kind of adnetwork/adserving related business I can certainly see some advantages on having privileged access to Omniture’s product suite.
What do you think?
good to see you are writing again!
the problem with this acquisition is it’s a lot of money
how do you make sense of such an investment? you can find some potential sinergies by matching adobe’s technology with omniture’s, but does it justify actually buying the company? couldn’t they have started with a strategic partnership, and evaluate the acquisition later? (and probably, with a lower price for the shares
that’s the great challenge. i’m sure they have something powerful in mind, i just can’t figure it out yet.
pere rovira
19 Sep 09 at 12:08 am
Hi Pere,
I wonder the same, Why pay so much?
I think, they are confident they can take Omniture assets and combine them with their own products and infrastructure increasing Omniture current revenue.
Let’s say they are actually thinking of a marketing/ecommerce management product suite offered as SaaS.
Why not buy a cheaper company? For instance Lyris. Or start with a partnership as you mention.
I guess they have a reason to believe in this business opportunity and not locking-in Omniture increases the risk of stronger competition on the near future. Either because Omniture would have eventually understand the market or because they could have been bought by someone else.
By the way, I love hotbanana maybe they should buy Lyris anyway
Saludos,
Andrés
Andrés Flores
19 Sep 09 at 1:08 am