The Burnaby, Canada-based company sees the HiddenMind deal as a way of offering enterprise customers a more complete framework to mobilize applications such as CRM, ERP, sales force automation and field services applications.
In a complex deal, HiddenMind stockholders will get 14,966,034 units of Infowave at a deemed price of CAD 0.19 ($0.14) each. Each unit is worth one Infowave share and half an option to buy a further Infowave share at a price of CAD 0.19 over the next two years. With Infowave trading at CAD 0.24 ($0.17) yesterday, the share element is worth an immediate $2.4m, but if the company prospers as a result of the merger, the option element could be more valuable.
Even though it boasts 100 enterprise customers including a global deal with Compaq Computer Corp and a tie-up with PDA vendor Handspring Inc, Infowave only recorded revenue of $1.8m in the year to December 31 2002, while posting a loss of $9.7m.
The acquisition of Cary, North Carolina-based HiddenMind is designed to change that and Infowave said it planned quickly to integrate the company’s technology into its own platform. HiddenMind’s applications have been aimed at organizations in areas such as healthcare, manufacturing and financial services and enables mobile employees to exchange information with enterprise applications.
It says its Intelligent Mobile Solutions allow end-users to interact continuously with enterprise applications independent of wireless network connection or coverage. Changes made offline are queued, and processed automatically as soon as the network connection is re-established. It says its technology supports devices such as Pocket PC and RIM and has a migration path to capitalize on the proliferation of J2MEdevices.
The deal is similar to the December 2002 acquisition by Sybase Inc of mobile applications specialist AvantGo Inc for $38m in cash. This brought together AvantGo’s mobile application and web technology with iAnywhere’s data synchronization and mobile database technology.
Source: Computerwire
