I saw the news this morning that Hyland is acquiring Alfresco in a deal to be finalized in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Hyland cites Alfresco’s global reach and their open source core as the primary drivers behind the move.

An acquisition of this sort is not unexpected–back in February of 2018 Alfresco announced they were being acquired by a private equity firm (blog post). Subsequent management changes and layoffs were likely aimed, at least in part, at making Alfresco a more attractive acquisition target. In hindsight, perhaps the acquisition earlier this year of one of Alfresco’s key professional services partners, TSG, was also part of that strategy (blog post).

I don’t know much about Hyland so I don’t have much to say about the strategic, technical, or cultural fit of the two companies. I have had recent inquiries from prospects looking to move off of Hyland OnBase and onto other technologies primarily to reduce software license and maintenance costs, but that is completely anecdotal.

My advice to my customers is the same I would give in any acquisition scenario: Don’t panic. It can take a significant amount of time for acquisitions to impact customers in any real way.

Should you re-evaluate your investment in Alfresco? I think you should do that every year or three with all of your vendors. Make them continue to earn your business with a great product that fits the way you want to do business. Don’t let them take that license and/or maintenance revenue for granted.

We’ll have a better idea for how this is going to playout next year.