System iNetwork

August 18, 2008

Help/Systems Acquires PowerTech

For all intents and purposes, Help/Systems has bought The PowerTech Group. The deal is a little more complicated than that because it involves a few private equity firms, but there it is. Reportedly, the papers have been signed for nearly a month, but both Help/Systems and The PowerTech Group have been keeping quiet. They are private companies, so they don't really have to shout out the news. Still, both of these enterprises deliver software solutions to some of the largest organizations in the world, and they've got customers who bet their business on their solutions . . . and these customers might like to know who owns the bank accounts.

I listened to a couple of birds chirp in the wind earlier this month, but I wasn't able to hear them clearly, so to speak--so I've got to give a holler out to IT Jungle for breaking the news in our world. Apparently a reader tip pointed to TheDealmaker.org, where a short article noted the deal, which covers the three private equity groups involved.

Private equity firm Audax Group took over Help/Systems about a year ago. Audax has now acquired PowerTech from the private equity groups that owned it--Bluestem Capital, Inc., and SeaPoint Ventures--and added it to the Help/Systems business portfolio, though both Help/Systems and PowerTech appear to be operating as separate business units.

PowerTech has been providing security solutions in the System i world for years, and it seems to have been doing a great job at it, too. I've talked to a variety of PowerTech experts over the years for various articles, and it seems as if the company has been growing its System i business to good effect. Again, the company is private and has never let me look at the books. All I'm saying is that my first impression is that PowerTech would make a good acquisition, especially since the need for security and compliance solutions in the industry at large is on the rise. We've got a global marketplace now, and the hackers in China and Russia aren't particularly concerned about U.S. authorities knocking on their doors in the middle of the night.

As for Help/Systems, the company's portfolio of system management tools--a.k.a. the Robot suite of solutions--along with the reporting and business intelligence solutions it picked up from Advanced Systems Concepts (ASC) a couple of years ago, make it a System i-focused product powerhouse. The company touts itself as "the world's leader in System i software solutions." It is vague on the criteria, but hey, we here at System iNEWS don't exactly try to spell out the criteria when we say we are "the ultimate resource for System i pros."

In any event, I'll be trying to secure interviews with both Help/Systems and PowerTech, and I'll report back with any relevant news.

Posted by cmaxcer at August 18, 2008 10:09 AM