Event
On 12 December 2006, Primavera announced it has acquired two companies: ProSight, whose software helps companies analyze and prioritize project and portfolio investments, and Pertmaster, which focuses on risk analysis and mitigation. Terms of the two deals were not disclosed.
Analysis
Primavera has a history of building out its software products and acquiring technology to meet its customers' demands. Since the company received an influx of $150 million to $200 million in investment capital in April 2006, Gartner has expected Primavera to acquire related products. These latest acquisitions reflect the same style and tactics used by Primavera prior to the capital influx, serving to confirm continuity in Primavera's management and approach. We expect Primavera will make further acquisitions beyond ProSight and Pertmaster.
ProSight supports project portfolio analysis, prioritization, application portfolio rationalization, IT asset inventory and other portfolio management styles. The acquired product will be marketed as Primavera ProSight, a separate product that can be integrated with other Primavera tools or used as a standalone tool. The company ProSight was built from leveraging a substantial amount of process consulting in system implementations. ProSight tools ship with content supporting different portfolio methodologies, training materials, "quick start" deployment models and algorithms for "what if" scenario planning at the business level.
The acquisition of ProSight could re-invigorate Primavera's portfolio management offering, but Primavera will be challenged to retain and grow the consultative services needed to support ProSight sales, which are different kinds of services than those presently offered by Primavera or its resellers. Primavera will also have to respond to aggressive pricing from Microsoft with its newly acquired Portfolio Server offering.
Driving the acquisition is ProSight's focus on government and public sector business opportunities, where Primavera is closely watching its competition in project and portfolio management (PPM), including IT-oriented PPM. Beyond its core legacy in engineering/construction, utility and aerospace/defense PPM, Primavera has seen its competitors make significant headway in corporate IT, and has itself sought growth in IT in both public sector and financial services verticals. ProSight's recently acquired government customers — including the U.S. Department of Defense and Army Internal Command — as well as its sales activity in state governments and their agencies, and in higher education/nonprofit organizations, made the vendor more attractive to Primavera.
Pertmaster, little known in corporate IT departments, is an established partner of Primavera, and principally active in the oil and gas industry, as well as aerospace and defense and other large government projects. Pertmaster Project Risk and Risk Expert are used to assess and mitigate cost estimate risks, often in integration with Primavera and other project management solutions.
