Pivotal Corp. held its long-delayed shareholders’ meeting Monday, giving its investors a chance to ratify at last the company’s plans to sell itself. Pivotal closed Wednesday on its acquisition by Chinadotcom Corp. unit CDC Software, according to a Pivotal spokesman.
The midmarket CRM (customer relationship management) software maker became the target of an unexpected bidding war late last year. After soliciting bidders to take over the financially struggling firm, Pivotal’s management accepted a cash offer from an investment firm that planned to merge the company with another CRM vendor, Talisma Corp. Shortly before the intended shareholders’ vote on that deal, a rival company, Onyx Software Corp., stepped in with an unsolicited stock-based acquisition offer. While Pivotal’s management put together its rejection of Onyx’s offer, CDC Software stepped in with its own unsolicited bid — a cash-and-stock mix Pivotal’s board ultimately deemed superior to its agreement with Talisma. When the dust settled, CDC Software was the suitor left standing.
Pivotal and CDC Software said they will elaborate later this week on their acquisition plans and product roadmap. Executives have said previously that Pivotal will continue operating as a separate business unit and remain in its Vancouver headquarters, while CDC Software uses Pivotal’s CRM technology as a component in the ERP (enterprise resource planning) software it is building. CDC Software said it will target that suite toward customers in Asia-Pacific, the territory on which it focuses.
