Alibaba Group and its majority-owned subsidiary Alibaba.com have entered into an agreement to inject the Business Management Software (BMS) division of Alisoft Holding into Alibaba.com. Alisoft is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group.
Under the agreement, the assets being injected into Alibaba.com include application software product lines for small business and related assets of Alisoft, and all customer contracts and employees that are associated with the BMS division.
The product offering of the BMS division being transferred to Alibaba.com includes a suite of small business applications that allow businesses to keep track of their customers and inventory. In addition, the transfer includes a software development tool that will allow creation of business-management-related software solutions for its customers.
Alibaba.com is expected to leverage its sales and marketing organisation to increase the sale of Alisoft’s customer relationship management and marketing software for exporters and small businesses engaged in domestic trade. The software products offered by the BMS division are delivered through the internet under the ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) model.
Following approval by the board, Alibaba.com said that it has agreed to pay a total consideration of $30.5m in the form of cash and equity incentive awards to employees being transferred. Alibaba.com will also assume all customer contracts and the associated business liabilities.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by September 1, 2009. Up on completion, the BMS division, with its employees, would be integrated with Alibaba.com’s ‘Information Technology business unit’.
Jack Ma, founder, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, and chairman of the board of Alibaba.com, said: Alibaba Group is pleased to be able to offer Alibaba.com such a high quality asset as Alisoft’s BMS Division, the industry leader in ‘Software as a Service.’ The BMS products have been developed specifically to address the emerging needs of small businesses engaging in e-commerce.
