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M&A in Microsoft Channel: Progress Acquires Kemp

Longtime Microsoft partner Progress Software, a maker of digital experience management (DEM) solutions with a robust partner program, is acquiring another Microsoft partner in Kemp Technologies.

Announced by the two companies on Thursday, the deal is expected to close next month (pending regulatory approval) and run Progress $258 million in cash. It's part of Progress' stated strategy to double its size within five years through M&A.

"The acquisition of Kemp...furthers our total growth strategy and will enable us to add scale and cash flow, creating significant shareholder value," said Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta, in a statement.

Progress is the maker of Sitefinity, a content management system that runs as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) on Microsoft's Azure cloud. It also makes NativeChat, which helps developers build chatbot functionality into sites and applications. Other Progress products are in the realms of data connectivity, UI/UX development, infrastructure monitoring and application availability. It's also the steward of the Chef software automation product for DevOps, having acquired it one year ago this month. Progress' partner program has over 2,000 enrolled members, according to the company, servicing over 70,000 organizations.

The acquisition of Kemp will help Progress improve its products "to develop, deploy and manage high-impact applications," Gupta said.

Kemp makes a line of load-balancing solutions, as well as network monitoring, behavior analysis and threat-detection products. Combined, they provide what Progress called "Application Experience Management (AX)" capabilities to its existing offerings.

"These capabilities complement Progress offerings, such as WhatsUp Gold, a market leader in easy-to-use network management," Gupta said. "Combined, they will offer the best application experience solution in the market."

In a separate blog post, Gupta noted that the flood of remote workers since the pandemic began last year has forced organizations to accelerate their digitalization projects and revamp "their total infrastructure, cloud capabilities, security practices and more."

"This acquisition strengthens our capabilities in these critical areas," he said.

Gupta also noted the benefits to Progress of inheriting Kemp's channel partners.

"Kemp also has a thriving partner ecosystem, which complements our channel and is one that we will nurture and grow," he said. "Partners will benefit by being able to deliver a broader portfolio of Progress products to their customers, and will be able to leverage Progress Accelerate, our award-winning channel partner program."

Kemp CEO Ray Downes concurred, saying in a statement that the acquisition will "provide great benefit to our customers and partners."

About the Author

Gladys Rama (@GladysRama3) is the editorial director of Converge360.

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