Captiva captured by EMC Documentum

EMC Documentum, the enterprise content management (ECM) and storage behemoth, is to acquire Captiva, a provider of document capture software, for $275m. A definitive agreement has been signed between the two companies.

“This acquisition allows EMC Documentum to gain access to the customer accounts of competitors that have Captiva systems installed,” said John Richardson, capture market analyst at Strategy Partners.

Information professionals can expect to be targeted, he said. “EMC Documentum has traditionally been very strong in maximising opportunities for cross-selling.”

Richardson added that the acquisition posed “significant” problems for IBM and Hummingbird, because most of their customers would be using either Captiva or Kofax systems. “This puts pressure on the other content management companies to sort out their document capture strategy,” he said.

Pointing to the fact that Kofax’s owner, Dicom, had seen a share price increase of 17% in the week following the announcement, Richardson said there was an increased likelihood that a vendor would acquire Kofax.

EMC Documentum has partnered with Captiva for seven years, and the acquisition will make it possible to have greater integration between Captiva and EMC Documentum’s other products, such as its Centera archiving software.

Because Captiva focuses on the early stages of information lifecycle management, the acquisition extends the EMC Documentum reach in the information management market.

Although, historically, EMC Documentum has been a storage management company, it has recognised the growing importance of information to its customers, said Dave Farmer, a company spokesperson.

Asked if he saw EMC becoming a “one-stop shop” for information management, Farmer said: “The framework is there. As we evolve we’ll continue to enhance it through partnerships and acquisitions.”

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