Content management service provider iUpload added to its ASP portfolio Monday through the acquisition of competitor WebPartz.
Burlington, Ont.-based iUpload
has offered management of internal content like press releases and FAQs since 1998. The acquisition of WebPartz allows the company to move into other areas like registration forms and feedback tools such as surveys and discussion forums, company executives said. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“”It really lets us move from managing one aspect of a client’s Web site to being able to manage all aspects of Web content,”” said iUpload president and CEO Robin Hopper.
The WebPartz office, located in Mississauga, Ont., has closed, but its five employees have been relocated to Burlington. WebPartz founder David Carter will take on the role of vice-president of business development. He said that he and Hopper have bumped into each other over the years and enjoyed a friendly rivalry. But their products were different enough that a partnership between the two made sense.
“”The more we talked, the more we thought there’s 90 per cent synergy,”” explained Carter. “”Most of our customers weren’t very similar; our content management tool didn’t focus very much on workflow.””
Carter added that bringing both sets of products together under the same roof shouldn’t present a problem.
“”We worked through a lot of that with our applications, just because our customers can have such a variety of platforms. Both of us had to publish to customers that are working on Unix platforms or Apache, or whatever they happened to put their systems on,”” he said.
The integration work will focus on branding and making sure the developers from WebPartz and iUpload can conform to a similar style for future projects, he said. WebPartz products or “”Partz”” will retain their name for the foreseeable future until they can be re-branded under the iUpload name.
Customers of iUpload include Hamilton Health Services, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Western Financial Group. The company inherits WebPartz customers like Molson and Teranet.
According to Hopper, iUpload’s initial focus was on the small to medium-size market. The company services small customers with only a few employees but has continued to get pulled up-market. Larger customers often regard iUpload’s ASP-style service as a stopgap solution until they can buy licensed software. But what is first regarded as temporary sometimes turns into 18-month contracts, he said.
Pure-play ASPs are rare in this country, said IDC Canada analyst Lise Dellazizzo. “”All the companies that have been making money in this market are not pure-play ASPs. They are companies that have a different core heritage. An ASP becomes
