Software code management and programming utilities company Mortice Kern Systems Inc has bought DataFocus Inc and its NutCracker Unix-on-Windows NT system software in a stock swap valued at $10m, or two times DataFocus’ sales. With it, MKS hopes to create a brand for enterprise interoperability and claims to be the leading cross-platform software management company. DataFocus says it’s no firesale – even though the value looks low given the 500,000 users and 500 ISVs it claimed recently (CI No 3,566) – and that there’s a $250m opportunity in this space. The company insists its focus is interoperability, not migrating users from Unix to NT and that 90% of its customers maintain a common code base across Unix and NT. MKS said the acquisition will be neutral to slightly accretive to its business in the short term. It’ll add four cents to its May 1 to April 30 earnings. MKS has been reselling DataFocus software for five years. DataFocus has 28 employees, bringing MKS up to 320. MKS reported earnings of $970,000 on revenue up 84% at $12.7m in its second fiscal quarter, which ended last October.
