Borland merger complete
Borland International completes its acquisition of Open Environment for wider product distribution.
Under the previously announced acquisition plan, each share of Open Environment will be exchanged for .66 shares of Borland. The value of the stock transaction was nearly $30 million.
Open Environment builds three-tier client-server architectures, and Borland plans to use this technology in its Delphi, IntraBuilder, and other development tools.
Although the merger had originally been expected to bring a much desired three-tier development capability to Delphi, analysts believe that it won't go far enough in pushing forward the tool's appeal. The main benefit that Borland will receive out of the deal is wider product distribution.
Open Environment will operate as a subsidiary of Borland, under the company's name. Borland's game plan is to step away from its consumer-oriented desktop applications and concentrate on products and services that serve software developers.
But Borland has a tough road ahead. It reported a second-quarter net loss of $9.8 million, or 31 cents per share, compared with net income of $2.6 million, or 8 cents a share, a year ago. And revenues dropped 29 percent to $36.4 million for the quarter, compared with a year earlier.
The company attributed the loss to its customers' reluctance to adopt Borland's client-server products.