News
Microsoft Buys Gold Certified Partner Prodiance
- By Kurt Mackie
- June 08, 2011
Microsoft acquired Pleasanton, Calif.-based Prodiance Corp., which provides enterprise risk management products, on Monday.
Prodiance had been a Gold Certified Partner under the old Microsoft Partner Program. Under the terms of the acquisition, the company will remain in Pleasanton and become a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft.
According to a Microsoft FAQ, the company is working with Prodiance management "to bring a number of Prodiance employees to Microsoft." The two companies aren't disclosing the financial details of the deal.
Prodiance's Enterprise Risk Manager product line works with Microsoft Excel to help companies with risk analysis, supporting inventory, compliance issues, discovery, management, remediation and the monitoring of "mission critical spreadsheets," according to Prodiance's description.
Microsoft plans to incorporate some of Prodiance's technologies into future Microsoft Office and SharePoint versions, it said in an announcement. The integration will add "increased security and control over critical business information in spreadsheets." It will enable auditing and policy enforcement via "continuous monitoring of documents." It's also expected to enable "automated risk assessment."
Microsoft plans to disclose further details about its product integration at a future date. Existing Prodiance customers, as of June 6, can buy more Prodiance licenses. In addition, Prodiance support policies for current customers will continue through their expiration periods. Customers wanting to purchase Prodiance solutions today should wait for Microsoft to disclose pricing and licensing details to be offered with the Office product line at a later unspecified date, according to the FAQ.
A "Microsoft Pathways" page here lists additional transition details associated with the acquisition.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.