HCL Completes Acquisition of Unica

HCL Completes Acquisition of Unica, following its announcement of intent in December, HCL Technologies has at long last completed its acquisition of select parts of IBMs extensive software portfolio. The shopping cart contained AppScan, BigFix, Commerce, Connections, Digital Experience (Portal and Content Manager), Notes Domino, and of course Unica. All told, the purchase set them back a cool 1.8 billion US dollars.

Here’s why we think it is good news for fans of Unica.

Unica was founded in 1992 by Yuchun Lee, Ruby Kennedy and David Cheung, and was originally acquired by IBM in 2010, before being divested officially to HCL Technologies on 2nd July 2019. A cynic might wonder why HCL are investing so heavily in enterprise level, ‘on premise’ technologies at a time when so much of the worlds technical infrastructure is moving to the cloud, and to an ‘as a service’ software model.

While the cloud is an extremely economical and effective model for all kinds of organisations big and small, there are a number of limitations that for certain types of organisations and verticals, can make all the difference. According to a 2018 survey by research firm IDC, 50% of approximately 400 responders said they planned to move to either private cloud or non-cloud by 2020. Among the reasons given would be security, ever a concern in our hack-prone modern age, and latency, where the speed of data in & data out of your dream cloud environment could struggle to keep up with the velocity you need for actionable data.

What do HCL know that we don’t though? For one thing, it is deceptively large, with more than 135,000 employees and a posted revenue in 2019 of $8.63 billion. They might well in fact be the largest organisation you’re not quite sure of the acronyms meaning (spoiler alert: Hindustan Computers Limited). Even prior to the acquisition of Unica, their clients include half of the worlds Fortune 500 companies, and with that kind of reach, and those kinds of contacts, all things are possible.

Even before the acquisition, HCL Technologies were significantly expanding the development department, and if even half the plans we’ve heard from the halls of HCL are true, Chapter 3 of the Unica story could well prove to be the most interesting of all.

To celebrate the acquisition of Unica and the beginning of a new phase, Purple Square are offering a combined fixed price upgrade to v11.1 and health check! Get in touch to find out more.

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