Microsoft, for example, is becoming more aggressive in that market, and has acquired Great Plains Software and Navision, two makers of business software products.
Great Plains Software Inc., a maker of business-management software, agreed yesterday to buy the closely held Solomon Software for about $142.3 million in stock and cash to gain software for taking companies online.
The effort will help SAP fend off a challenge from Microsoft, which by its recent plans to acquire Navision and its purchase of Great Plains Software, now offers a wide range of products to small businesses.
It also explains Microsoft's announcement on December 21st that it would buy Great Plains Software, a provider of on-tap accounting, finance and payroll services, in a $1.1 billion share-swap.But will customers really opt for regular subscriptions over occasional upgrades?
Great Plains Software, Solomon Software, HBO & Co., Computer Associates, Intel and Sterling Software are some of the clients that are "renting" Pervasive's software for use in hundreds of applications.
Microsoft has closed just a handful of major deals aQuantive, Great Plains Software, Navision, Hotmail and none has changed the face of the company.
For example, Fargo, N.D.-based Great Plains Software uses the Pervasive databases as the core of its bestselling Profit software package, which helps small and midsize companies manage payroll.
In April, 16 months after Microsoft paid $1.1 billion in stock to buy Great Plains Software, the firm Burgum had run in Fargo, N.D. for 17 years, he was named to run the newest of Microsoft's seven business groups, Business Solutions.
One of Microsoft's biggest mergers was Great Plains Software, which was a success specifically because Microsoft pretty much left it alone for a couple years and let it operate independently.
The myriad operational nuances were more than the "plain vanilla" software package could handle.
