J.D. Edwards buys Numetrix
In a move to further extend its business into the supply chain management space, business software firm J.D. Edwards says it has agreed to buy Internet supply chain provider Numetrix.
Under the deal, Denver-based J.D. Edwards said it will purchase Numetrix stock for approximately $80 million cash and expects to close the deal in June.
J.D. Edwards said in a statement that it plans to combine the Numetrix product suite with its current enterprise applications in order to link customers, suppliers, and trading partners in a Web-based collaboration.
The Toronto-based Numetrix, one of the few standalone supply chain companies left, said its Internet product suite will help boost J.D. Edwards' expanding e-commerce business, to be announced at J.D. Edwards' international customer conference in Denver later this week.
Numetrix, which has struggled with its business during the past 18 months, still has solid products and technology that gives J.D. Edwards much needed supply chain planning features, especially for the consumer packaged goods and process industries, according to analysts' notes from research firm AMR Research.
And, while AMR Research believes that this acquisition is a smart move for the ERP provider and can help boost its position among competitors Oracle and SAP, Numetrix's sour business performance in the past several months posts a caution sign to some analysts.
"The company [Numetrix] has been in turmoil for quite some time," Steve Kohn, an analyst with Soundview Technology, said in a recent phone interview. "I'm not sure that's the best acquisition that J.D. Edwards could do right now. I don't think that would be the best option for them."
Even though Kohn had admitted that Numetrix, at one time, was gaining in the space of supply chain management, poor execution of its business on the company's part has slowed down its momentum.
J.D. Edwards has been "aggressively" adding partnerships and new initiatives, AMR said. AMR analysts noted that J.D. Edwards has been thinking about this move for quite some time and believe the company can pull this off, unlike competitor Baan, which, analysts have said, expanded too quickly.
The combined Numetrix-J.D. Edwards offering, such as J.D. Edwards' Scorex supply chain application with Numetrix/3 supply chain system is expected to be delivered later this year in a joint version, the two companies said. J.D. Edwards' Scorex, which was released last year, includes features for advance planning and scheduling, order management, warehouse management, transportation management, and cost and customer service management.