The Divine Phenomenon
Tuesday 11th December 2001
They say that a software company is not large until it has $1 billion in revenues. Indeed there are many examples of software companies that grew strongly for a while and then stumbled as they hit the $1 billion barrier (Informix and Sybase come to mind). So when a very new software company goes through the $1 billion mark, it gets our attention. Divine Inc is just about to do that - and, strange as it may seem, very few people know much about the company.
A D V E R T I S M E N T
Divine is run by "Flip" Filipowski, previously CEO and guiding light of Platinum Technology before it was sold for $3.6 billion or so to Computer Associates. There were elements of non-compete in the deal and thus Flip has set up a wholly new business that is unrelated to the database and software tools business that was at the heart of the Platinum business.
Divine is about the extended enterprise. The fundamental proposition is that technology now enables deep collaboration with customers or up and down the supply chain. Think web technologies, content management, collaboration, customer relationship management, knowledge management, supply chain enablement and you have the picture, if not the detail. Since it was founded late in 1999, Divine has been acquiring companies that have software or services in that space and has acquired 30 or so.
The vision is of Internet-based solutions for the enterprise, provided by a single supplier that integrates its own and other solutions. It involves, or can involve, application software, system integration services and managed application hosting. It provides an underlying platform for interaction and collaboration between customers, staff and trading partners and it is 'technology agnostic', straddling Sun's J2EE and Microsoft's .NET architectures. The idea is also to target specific vertical industries (automotive, biotech, retail, financial services, etc.)
To assemble the vision, Divine has purchased a wide variety of technology companies at very little cost. If you have a cash pile and a business vision, the best time to execute is in a stock market downturn - and this is what Divine has done. As a basis for professional services and hosting it acquired many of the assets of marchFirst including a clutch of US offices, the SAP implementation practice, the HostOne hosting unit, the VAR business unit, the iCampus training and technology unit and marchFirst's German operations. In total this amounted to 2100 professional services employees and about $250 million in revenues. It also acquired the assets of Intira (from bankruptcy), which included Intira's hosting infrastructure and some on-going revenue streams. It has made many other acquisitions (about 30 in total) and has investments in other companies whose technologies it deploys in its solutions. Acquisitions include Open Market (ecommerce server and content server technology), Eprise (on-line publishing and associated workflow), SageMaker (enterprise information portals), DataBytes (mobile and wireless) Fracta Networks (information aggregation) and MindAlign (collaboration).
It may look like an 'assembly of parts', but the technology is being integrated to deliver clear business benefit and an extensive professional services operation is now in place to deliver solutions. As far as we can tell, Divine already has a set of happy customers. It also has further money to invest and will probably continue to make strategic acquisitions over the coming year. Divine is backed by an impressive list of investors, which includes Microsoft, Computer Associates, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Compaq.
Divine is not the 'Platinum Phoenix rising from the flames', but something else entirely. It is the first company to lay claim to the extended enterprise space and may soon become the gorilla in that market. Eprocurement and CRM have already demonstrated that they deliver genuine business benefits, but they can hardly lay claim to delivering the extended enterprise. Divine is the company that offers that vision and it is already executing on it.
The Snark
A D V E R T I S M E N T
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Fantastic - PLATINUM was all about taking care of customers, and I'm really pleased to see these guy...
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