SealedMedia, a digital rights management (DRM) vendor, was acquired for $10 million in cash and contingent consideration of up to $5 million based upon the achievement of certain financial objectives. Content cleansing technologies vendor Bitform, meanwhile, cost the company $1.2 million in cash and contingent consideration of up to $1.3 million based upon the achievement of certain financial objectives.

According to Stellent the addition of the two technologies should provide its customers with the ability to better secure and control sensitive content inside and outside of the enterprise.

The addition of DRM capabilities is the latest enhancement to enterprise content management (ECM) platforms. Several ECM vendors provide integration capabilities with DRM products, and EMC recently announced the addition of its own DRM solution following its acquisition of Authentica, a DRM vendor.

A by-product of an increase in the number of transactions being conducted electronically is that higher volumes of unstructured information are being transmitted outside of the firewall. This requires an increased level of security, including the setting of strict access rights on individual pieces of information, which control what a recipient is able to view. DRM can also be applied to content that is made available via pay-per-view, and to content that may be distributed on a trial basis for a limited period of time.

The addition of SealedMedia to the Stellent portfolio will broaden the scope of the ECM capabilities and provide its customers with the ability to use the ECM platform to create applications that fully support transactions with customers outside of the firewall.

SealedMedia is a well-established London-based company with a broad list of Global 1,000 customers, and it is the current intention of Stellent to continue to market the product as a stand-alone solution, in addition to integrating its capabilities with its ECM platform.

The ability to secure individual pieces of information will be enhanced through the addition of the Bitform technology, which can cleanse information of hidden data (e.g. sensitive metadata) before it is sent to a recipient. This information includes tracked changes and comments, revision and author history, fast-save data, and database connection details. The Bitform Secure SDK identifies and removes files of sensitive, confidential, or proprietary metadata that could pose a risk to the organization if it reached a wider audience. In contrast to SealedMedia, Bitform is a Chicago-based start up software development company.

Strategically, these are good acquisitions for Stellent as they are in complementary and not competing technologies, and they will strengthen Stellent’s position in the ECM market place, providing it with a competitive advantage over ECM vendors that have yet to add DRM to their portfolios. However, Stellent needs to complete all integration work in a reasonable timeframe. Many ECM vendors have suffered financially following acquisitions as a result of longer than expected integration timeframes, and Stellent must avoid falling into the same trap.

Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)