Many of us will recall a time when Tikit where as ubiquitous in law firms as, say, IntApp are now. I certainly couldn’t go a month without seeing them at the turn of the century! I know a few people wondered what the heck was going on when they became part of BT, and of course the answer (other than some folks made some money) was that BT expected to use the TFB part of the group to leverage towards being a large ‘cloud’ services supplier to UK legal.
Come the likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others ‘cloud’ offerings and BTs refocus on their core provisions, then Tikit must now seem to be an odd bedfellow for BT. It’s not unusual in such circumstances for large organisations to divest themselves of such bedfellows despite them still being profitable, albeit at a reduced level … and certainly the likes of LexisNexis and Thompson Reuters have not shied away from doing such things.
As far as DMS services revenue is concerned then it’s possibly true to say that there is less available now as more competition exists and firms opt to use ‘cloud’ based DMSs.
However given the number of firms moving from end-of-life PMSs and the fact that services to install ‘the usual suspects’ replacement systems is scarce then it could be quite possible that P4W and Carpe Diem can fill some gaps in the UK market. If so it could certainly give some breathing space whilst Tikit re-focus.
I’ve seen non-legal software companies almost on their death beds before (which Tikit are not), only to re-invent and recover given some time and support. Times will be a little tough, perhaps with some staff losses, but it’s probably better tor Tikit to be divested whilst still profitable so that they can re-focus and regain some innovation.
I for one say Good Luck to them …