Scottsdale, Arizona-based Intelispan Inc has acquired Cyclone Software Corp and has entered into an agreement to acquire Corporate Computing Services (CCS) from Process Management Corp. The price tag on each company is $20m. Intelispan intends to pay $4m in cash and the balance in stock for Cyclone, which builds Java-based, platform-independent EDI and non-EDI software to run over IP networks. For CCS, a 90- person database and supercomputer outsourcing firm with Dial Corp and Boeing as clients, Intelispan also wants to pay in cash and stock. The irony is that Intelispan is a tiny 25-person startup. After both acquisitions go through, if indeed they do, the company will have 160 employees and expected revenues around the $15m mark. So what’s in it for Cyclone and CCS? Intelispan president and chief executive officer Peter Nelson explains that his company is a secure virtual private network service built on WorldCom’s backbone with 250 points of presence (POPs) around the world. Some people might want to call us an IP VAN, he says. CCS started out as an Intelispan customer, then acquired reseller rights. Eventually, executives realized that CCS’s future was inextricably linked with that of Intelispan and its network, so merger talks began. As for Cyclone, the biggest objection it had encountered to its sales story was that while prospects liked the global reach and ease of use of the internet, they distrusted its lack of security. A merger with a virtual private IP network was one obvious solution.
