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OnDisplay acquires software maker for $181 million

Software maker OnDisplay says it will acquire Oberon Software, which makes software that helps customers do the systems integration required to do business online, in a stock swap valued at about $181 million.

Kim Girard
Kim Girard has written about business and technology for more than a decade, as an editor at CNET News.com, senior writer at Business 2.0 magazine and online writer at Red Herring. As a freelancer, she's written for publications including Fast Company, CIO and Berkeley's Haas School of Business. She also assisted Business Week's Peter Burrows with his 2003 book Backfire, which covered the travails of controversial Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. An avid cook, she's blogged about the joy of cheap wine and thinks about food most days in ways some find obsessive.
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Kim Girard
OnDisplay today said it will acquire Oberon Software in a stock swap valued at about $181 million.

OnDisplay's software powers Internet portals and Web sites, helping companies swap information such as inventory data, pricing and delivery status automatically. Privately held Oberon makes software that helps customers do the systems integration required to do business online.

Under today's deal, OnDisplay will issue approximately 1.9 million shares of its common stock valued at $181 million based on Friday's closing price.

Today's deal is intended to strengthen OnDisplay's position in the business-to-business e-commerce market that Forrester Research predicts will grow from $43 billion in 1999 to $1.3 trillion in 2003. OnDisplay, which went public last year, said it will use Oberon's technology to help the company expand development of its e-business exchange and enhance its integration services. GartnerGroup expects the number of online exchanges-or e-marketplaces-to expand to 9,000 by the end of 2005.

OnDisplay's customers include Travelocity.com, Grainger.com and online marketplaces such as PurchasePro.com and Harbinger.net. With 95 employees, Oberon has partnerships with enterprise software makers including Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and Manugistics, along with services companies Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, Razorfish and Sapient.

OnDisplay plans to hold a shareholders' meeting soon to approve the acquisition, which is expected to close in the first quarter, the company said in a statement.