Synergy Plus acquires Adaptive International

Reseller and integrator Synergy Plus has acquired multi-national software company Adaptive International and was working on making another acquisition of an Australian company this year.

Bill Votsaris, CEO at Synergy Plus, said Adaptive had a strong consulting capability that Synergy required and more established J2EE expertise.

The combined company now has over 100 certified enterprise consultants and focused on IBM mid-range infrastructure and implementing technologies such as J2EE, .NET, Lotus Notes, BEA, Sun and open source.

'If you look at KAZ with Telstra –- the number one position as an independent company in Australia is there for the taking and we want it,' he said. 'That critical mass enables us to bid for more business than we're currently bidding for,' he said. 'It [the acquisition] gives us the ability to cater for more people at one time,' he said.

'We're looking [at more] this year and in a similar space –- very similar to the Adaptive style [acquisition]. We're very focused in the mid-range solutions business for enterprise, and Adaptive are very strong in the banking sector. We're not going to broaden our speciality anymore –- we're just going to increase our bandwidth in our space now,' he said.

Synergy picked up 50 staff as a result of the acquisition. It would employ 200 people by the end of the year, he said.

Synergy would report sales revenue of $55 million for its financial year ending 30 June, 2004, up from $29 million in the previous financial year, Votsaris said. He added that the market was going 'gangbusters' at the moment. 'For us, we're going to have the best year ever since the inception of Synergy 21 years ago,' he said.

The revenue increase was across the board, he said. 'We've increased our market penetration into that mid-range/enterprise business. We've picked up [contracts] that we didn't have before and we've expanded our product set with the customers that we did have,' he said. 'We are eyeing the $100 million mark within three years,' he added.

Profit margins haven't changed and the company was able to grow without sacrificing its margins, he said.