IBM is boosting its presence in the electronic forms business, agreeing to acquire PureEdge Solutions for an undisclosed sum.
PureEdge, an IBM partner since 2002, makes software that takes corporate
data on inventory, pricing and customer and presents it in a readable
template.
The Victoria, B.C., company offers design tools for designing high-end
e-forms and viewer tools for rich client or thin-client environments. The
tools improve business processes for customers.
The software is based on XML
exchange documents within their business and across their partners and
customers.
PureEdge supports the XForms standard, which was created two years ago by
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to present information via the Web as an
improvement over Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). IBM officials said they
believe this gives the Armonk, N.Y. company an advantage over other
proprietary types of e-forms technology.
Moreover, the standard support enables IBM to integrate PureEdge technology
across its other software brands, something that Lotus e-forms could not
abide.
IBM plans to tuck the company’s technology into its Lotus collaboration and Workplace
software beginning next year.
A move toward greater efficiency over paper documents, e-forms software
helps businesses and organizations more quickly and easily share
information.
With its Intelligent Document Platform, Adobe is considered a leader in the
market. Microsoft has grand plans for its InfoPath forms software, too.
Ambuj Goyal, general manager in IBM’s software group, said on a conference
call that the market for e-forms is growing.
“It’s becoming clear to us that electronic forms is becoming one of the key
currencies for information exchange,” Goyal said. “Electronic forms capture
the business processes, in industries like banking, government procurement
or insurance.”
IBM has made several software acquisitions in the last four years,
bolstering its information integration, content management and management
software lines. PureEdge is a rare purchase tailored for Big Blue’s Lotus
collaboration line.
IBM to Buy E-Forms Maker PureEdge
