Event

On 21 February 2007, Plateau Systems announced its acquisition of Nuvosoft, a Web-based compensation management software provider. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Analysis

 This acquisition bodes well for both Plateau and Nuvosoft. Nuvosoft’s strong compensation solution fills a gap in Plateau’s talent management application suite and will enable Plateau to invest more resources in continued product development. In addition, Plateau will provide the sales and marketing “muscle” that Nuvosoft has lacked. Although Nuvosoft has a comparatively low profile in the compensation market, the company does offer functionality competitive with higher-end compensation solutions. Compared to some of the other vendors competing in the talent management application suite market, Plateau is smaller and does not have the same resources. Plateau will be challenged to balance investments between its core e-learning solutions and the newer performance, compensation and succession management solutions

Plateau will focus first on user interface integration and some basic data integration. This should be delivered by 2Q07. The harder data, process and infrastructure integration will likely occur throughout 2007. Differences in the technical architectures between Nuvosoft and Plateau will also need to be reconciled. Ultimately, Plateau Compensation will encompass three modules: Plateau Compensation Planning, Plateau Short-Term Incentive and Plateau Long-Term Incentive.

Plateau is a leading vendor in the e-learning suite market. Since 2005, it has built new modules for employee performance management and succession management. This has started the push for Plateau to move beyond selling to training departments and begin selling to a broader human resources audience. These modules have strong functionality suitable for use for large, complex companies. However, Plateau is relatively new to these markets and is still building its customer base in these areas. 

Recommendations

• Plateau customers and prospects: Continue investments and consider Plateau Compensation to fulfill compensation needs.
• Prospective Plateau Compensation customers: Expect that product integration will not be complete until the end of 2007. Also, because of the limited number of customers using the existing Nuvosoft solutions, customers should recognize that they will be relatively early adopters and manage risk appropriately.
• Nuvosoft customers and prospects : Continue investments and consider Plateau for other talent management applications, but recognize that there will be technology changes to the solution as Plateau moves it to a full Java Platform Enterprise Edition architecture.

• “Magic Quadrant for E-Learning Suites, 2006” — Vendor mergers and improved functionality are crucial for corporate adoption of e-learning suites. By Waldir Arevolo De Azevedo Filho and Lou Latham
• “Talent Management Application Suites Can Enhance Workforce Effectiveness” — Companies are turning their attention to strategic talent management applications to get more value from their investments in people. By James Holincheck

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