Video and voice transaction analysis company NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) has bought real-time decision and guidance system developer eglue.
NICE will pay about $29 million for the company, and the price can rise by another $6 million based on certain performance criteria.
The deal is NICE's fifth acquisition in Israel, following Actimize, Fortinet Systems, Hexagon System Engineering Ltd., and Orsus Ltd. Except for Actimize, all the acquisitions have been in the past year.
NICE plans to add eglue's real-time solutions to its SmartCenter customer service center software suite. An example given by NICE is customer support being contacted by a customer that has previously called the contact center regarding the same issue. The agent will receive a real-time alert about the customer’s sequence of prior interactions across the different communication channels (web, chat, text, etc.) and be presented with the information and steps to efficiently resolve the customer's issue.
The transaction is anticipated to close during the third quarter of 2010. NICE expects the acquisition to generate additional non-GAAP revenue of several million dollars in 2010 and to be slightly dilutive on a non-GAAP earning per fully diluted share basis in each of the last two quarters of 2010. The acquisition is expected to become accretive on a non-GAAP earnings per fully diluted share basis in the first quarter of 2011.
Gartner vice president Michael Maoz said that providing real time rules and information to customer service agents will be a major trend that will dominate customer service strategies over the next five years.
Founded in 2001 by Moshe Avlagon and Omer Geva, eglue has office in Israel, the US, and Europe. Its solutions have been installed at dozens of customer sites worldwide, including first-tier telecom carriers, and financial services, retail, travel and utility companies.
NICE shares closed up 0.37% yesterday at $26.83.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 10, 2010
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