According to a recent press release, printing and imaging solutions provider Lexmark International (News - Alert), Inc. has acquired Netherlands-based Pallas Athena, a leading provider of BPM, DOM and process mining software, for approximately $50.2 million. The transaction was done in cash.

With the acquisition, Pallas Athena will be a part of Perceptive Software, a stand-alone business unit within Lexmark. As a result, Perceptive Software will now be able to expand its EMEA region presence, leveraging growing worldwide sales force of Pallas Athena to sell these software solutions globally.

"A key element in this acquisition was to work within a company whose culture and drive is so much like our own," said John Hoogland, Pallas Athena's chairman and chief executive officer, who will now report to Scott Coons, Perceptive Software's president and chief executive officer and Lexmark vice president. "The joining of Pallas Athena with Perceptive Software and Lexmark will allow us to grow the BPM user base around the globe as we bring our intuitive solutions to new customers everywhere."

"This investment in the BPM market demonstrates Lexmark's continued focus on strategic acquisitions of technologies that strengthen our unique portfolio of leading end-to-end fleet management and business process solutions," said Paul Rooke, Lexmark's chairman and chief executive officer. "We expect this to be attractive to our global enterprise customers and help expand our MPS offering and Perceptive Software."

"BPM is a perfect complement to Perceptive Software's content-driven ECM solutions; it strengthens the impact of the context side of our 'content in context' approach," said Coons. "We've long had a deep understanding of our customers' unique business processes and their need for versatile and intuitive ECM solutions. With the addition of full-featured BPM, DOM and process mining capabilities complementing our offerings, we can now provide customers with a broader range of solutions that enable them to work even more efficiently."

Rahul Arora is a TMCnet contributor. He has worked as an editor and freelance writer for several reputed organizations in India. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves