Partnerpedia, a Vancouver software company that developed an app store for enterprise, has been acquired by Houston-based BMC Software (Nasdaq:BMC).
BMC Software, which is worth $2.2 billion and has 6,000 customers, has not disclosed how much the acquisition is worth.
Founded in 1996, Partnerpedia is headquartered in Vancouver and employs 50 people here. It also has an office in Morgan Hill, California.
Partnerpedia CTO and preosident Geoff Mair confirmed in a teleconference call that he will be staying on in Vancouver as senior director of product development for BMC, and that his team will also stay put.
"The products will continue to be developed in Vancouver," Mair told Business in Vancouver. "I'm excited to continue to be able to run the business within BMC and have access to more resources."
BMC is focusing on software aimed at reducing IT angst among employees. Partnerpedia makes two products that fit into that plan.
One is a marketplace for enterprise apps – a kind of Apple-style (Nasdaq:APPL) app store for business to sell their own apps or get access to other enterprise apps.
The other product is the AppZone, which companies can use to manage and control the various in-house apps or consumer apps employees might use from a single cloud-based platform.
BMC recently published an IT friction index that shows just how frustrated employees in organizations have become with their IT departments, which are having a hard time coping with the cross-pollination taking place with in-house enterprise applications, consumer applications and the integration of personal devices at work and outside of work.
"We really want to continue to provide solutions that reduce IT friction and we see Partnerpedia with AppZone as a real opportunity for that," said Kim DeCarlis, BMC's vice president of worldwide marketing.
"If we can provide a single plan of access to all the different apps that are approved for use in that enterprise, it's a real benefit to users and IT."
Employees can download the AppZone on their smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktops, and through it they can access, manage and update all approved apps they need, without the headache of having IT grant permissions and provide updates.
"There's clearly a push within BMC towards this more consumer-centric approach to IT, which our AppZone product fits very well into, so I see the Vancouver organization expanding to support that," Mair said.
