On 12 January 2010, Liaison Technologies, a global provider of business-to-business (B2B) integration and data management services, announced it has acquired integration service provider Advanced Data Exchange (ADX).

ADX is a small vendor with revenue of less than $10 million, so this acquisition does not fundamentally change the B2B market landscape. ADX substantially downsized in early 2009, which raised some concerns about its long-term viability (see "Magic Quadrant for Integration Service Providers").

ADX has invested substantially in "CommerceView," a PDF/e-mail-based "smart form" approach to engaging suppliers and smaller B2B community members that welcome a ubiquitous, e-mail-driven approach to e-commerce. This strengthens a similar approach that Liaison has piloted in Europe on a limited basis. Liaison plans to merge features from both offerings.

The deal is relatively modest when compared with the merger of GXS and Inovis in December 2009 (see "GXS/Inovis Merger Will Change the B2B Landscape"). But the synergies of the acquisition, combined with Liaison's aggressive pursuit of incremental consolidations for steady growth, make this acquisition noteworthy.

Sustained customer and revenue growth following its purchase of Contivo, Anilinker and First Thought Consulting show that Liaison can successfully absorb acquisitions. It will likely successfully assimilate ADX's technology and customer base. But in this acquisition it must deal with data center consolidation, which requires more finesse to reduce the impact on existing users.

Liaison's acquisitions demonstrate its competency — and appetite — for managing integration projects across a wide range of industries. ADX's diversified customer base, which was a challenge for the smaller vendor, becomes an asset to Liaison.

The acquisition is positive for Liaison and ADX customers, and it furthers Liaison's expansion in the B2B market via both organic growth and acquisitions. The deal will potentially provide some upsell opportunities, such as selling on-premises integration products and services like Contivo. The measure of success will be sustained revenue and customer growth.

• ADX customers: There is no need to take any immediate action as you now have a stronger technology provider, but contact Liaison to discuss its product road map. In particular, ask whether Liaison will implement a migration from ADX's data center and IT stack anytime soon, and whether or not this will affect B2B projects.
• Liaison customers: Expect to have access to new functionality, such as CommerceView as Liaison effectively absorbs the ADX assets.

• "Integration Service Providers Magic Quadrant Evaluation Criteria"— Gartner's rating criteria provide a starting point to help cut through the vendor and product diversity when evaluating potential integration service providers. By Benoit Lheureux and Paolo Malinverno
• "Liaison Deal Drives A2A and B2B Project Convergence"— Liaison's purchase of First Thought strengthened its blended approach to application-to-application and B2B integration. By Benoit Lheureux and Paolo Malinverno

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