Comments on: More Consolidation

By: Sebastien Dupuis

Sebastien Dupuis — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:24:41 +0000

This merger is simply the

As John mentioned, the LIMS market is a niche market and somewhat limited compared to other markets such as ERP software. A merger such as this has its pros and cons.

The cons is that it may force a software to die out and force its user-base into switching to a different solution (eitheer from the acquirer or from a different vendor). Some users may see this point as a benefit since they were already looking to either upgrade or replace the system: question answered – replace.

On the other side, this merger reinforces the competition between vendors to bring out innovative solutions to users.

Overall, it’ll bring headaches to some users in the short term but users will be the big winner long-term.

By: Gloria Metrick

Gloria Metrick — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:08:44 +0000

If you consider the last big LIMS merger when Thermo bought InnaPhase, I’m not sure whether customers suffered, in the long run. I’m sure there were adjustments in things such as support and services in the early days, but if you look at the products, overall, there are few surprises to me. I can’t remember if the Beckman CALS LIMS was in its retirement cycle when Thermo bought InnaPhase or if Thermo put it there, but it was a system long-due for retirement. And the fact that they realigned and repositioned the systems toward more specific markets is not much of a surprise, either.

But we know that buying some other group of software doesn’t bring that entire user base along, that some buyers see it as a good time to start the purchase process, again. As such, there always has to be something else behind these mergers and acquisitions. It often comes down to rounding out what a company can offer to the market.

By: John Trigg

John Trigg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:24:07 +0000

This acquisition is obviously very significant, particularly to users of SQL*LIMS® who, I would imagine are quite concerned about the future of their installed systems. However, mergers and acquisitions are a natural consequence of markets. Similar acquisitions have happened in the ELN sphere with the acquisition of the MDL electronic notebook business by Symyx, and Agilent’s acquisition of Kalabie, although in the latter case it was more of a portfolio extension.

What is interesting is the way in which this type of development contradicts the theories put forward by Chris Anderson in his book ‘The Long Tail’. In many software sectors, the trend is towards providing users/consumers with greater choice. Laboratory informatics is of course a niche area, so the same opportunities may not apply, but it would be interesting to know whether users generally feel threatened by mergers and acquisitions amongst their suppliers.