The iManage team may be thanking their lucky stars that they haven’t been sold off to document management rival OpenText, which has just bought a range of customer experience software solutions from HP Inc, less than a year after iManage completed a management buyout from HP.
OpenText has entered into a $170m definitive agreement to acquire a bundle of solutions including what remains of Interwoven, which in 2003 bought iManage. Interwoven was subsequently bought by Autonomy at the start of 2009 for $775m, before Autonomy was acquired by HP in 2011 for $11.7bn.
This latest acquisition by OpenText, an absolute bargain by comparison, includes web content management solution HP TeamSite; digital asset management solution HP MediaBin; enterprise contact centre management solution HP Qfiniti; as well as HP Explore; HP Aurasma; and HP Optimost.
HP split last year into Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc, in part thanks to its troubled acquisition of Autonomy, which led to an $8.8bn write down and multiple lawsuits. The fact that the remaining Interwoven business was lumped in with HP Inc, which sells printers and PCs, didn’t bode well.
But even before its split, HP was spinning off businesses that it no longer regarded as core, enabling the iManage team to complete its much-needed management buyout in July 2015.
Had things been otherwise, perhaps we could have seen what was once Hummingbird Enterprise, now OpenText eDocsDM, all housed under one happy roof.