Dataware acquires Sovereign Hill Software

Dataware, longtime player in the KM market, has acquired the assets and liabilities of information retrieval software developer Sovereign Hill Software for approximately $4 million. Sovereign Hill CEO David Mahoney becomes president and CEO of Dataware, replacing Kurt Mueller who will remain chairman of the company.

With this acquisition Dataware gets a small, cutting-edge KM software development company with engineering talent and complementary customer base; Sovereign Hill gets much-needed resources for expanding sales and marketing efforts. Dataware will also benefit from access to the consulting expertise located nearby at UMass-Amherst's Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR).

Industry gurus at The Delphi Group say the move, called admirably clean by recent standards, indicates early market maturity as "stronger mid-size firms like Dataware...accelerate the development of their value propositions by acquiring capable specialists." The acquisition of Sovereign Hill's technology and Mahoney's market expertise will help Dataware "leverage its collection of assets to be a player in the competition for knowledge management application leadership," according to Delphi.

Sovereign Hill's technology and development skills will help Dataware accelerate near-term growth and capture market share in 1999, according to Mueller, as well as accelerate efforts to define and implement application-specific solutions for vertical market segments.

Mahoney, the founder and former CEO of Banyan Systems, says the synergy between the two companies and complementary customer base creates "a unique opportunity to build a major growth company in the KM space.