Aegis & DiPlan

Here we go again. Another merger of companies with significant overlap of portfolios. In the past when this has happened, as in the case with Technomatix, Unicam, Fabmaster etc., many customers were confused about how any “new solutions” would appear. Would there be a move to one standard system, would the systems co-exist, how would they connect? These were initial questions. The next questions were about how customers would migrate. Customers asked whether their investment would be protected. Would all or at least certain product lines be dropped? Would customers, expecting to make an upward move actually be making a sideways step or even a down-grade as I heard from some people’s opinions? It can all lead to a “poisoning” of the market, bringing uncertainty and doubt.

Where acquisitions are done where there is little significant functional overlap, there are far fewer concerns, the key issue is the successful integration of products at a base level into a common suite, whilst retaining the familiar look and feel, more importantly, the benefits and values that each tool brings. Care has to be taken to consider the real cost of change for the customer. Having significant overlap creates a surprisingly difficult problem, especially with development teams in different continents speaking different languages.

Preparing Recommendations

Though Aegis, with DiPlan now, are competitors to our Valor MSS suite, I wish them well. If anyone from Aegis or DiPlan is reading this blog, let me say “please take care”, to try to limit the confusion as much as possible. Our respective customers do not need more uncertainty at a time when many of them are competing for survival. Bringing value is much more important than ticking boxes. Value and stability.