I knew when OSIsoft brought in VC money a sale was imminent. Sure enough. This morning’s blockbuster announcement proclaimed AVEVA the winner of the battle. $5.0 billion is a nice chunk of change for a software company, but the financials are solid and AVEVA should get a nice reward for its investment.

Rick Bullotta kicked things off this morning with a LinkedIn post “Boom. The value of the TwinThread and Aveva partnership just grew exponentially!” A number of interesting comments ensued.

Many questions involved Schneider Electric, owner of more than 50% of AVEVA. Will that make other industrial suppliers who partner with OSIsoft (Rockwell Automation, Emerson, et. al.) nervous about the neutrality of OSIsoft’s PI databases? At the earlier AVEVA virtual conference this year, Schneider’s CEO took pains to discuss the Schneider-AVEVA relationship and how AVEVA is run as a separate company. Time will tell, of course.

Another comment about the value if AVEVA can create some deep links into the PI historian with its other products. That would be an interesting competitive event.

I think the emerging digitization competition between AVEVA and PTC could be something to watch.

Pat Kennedy, founder and large shareholder of OSIsoft, retains a courtesy (and I’m sure strong advisory) position with the combined company. He also becomes one of the top 5 shareholders in AVEVA. That will make for some interesting board meetings.

Here is the announcement I received this morning:

AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, and OSIsoft, a global leader in real-time industrial data software and services, have announced an agreement for AVEVA to acquire OSIsoft for $5.0 billion. AVEVA and OSIsoft will combine their complementary product offerings, bringing together industrial software and data management to help customers in industrial and essential organizations accelerate their digital transformational strategies as efficiency, flexibility, sustainability and resilience become increasingly urgent requirements for customers.

OSIsoft’s data management software will complement AVEVA’s comprehensive end-to-end engineering, operations, and performance offerings. Integrating OSIsoft’s PI System into AVEVA’s comprehensive software portfolio will create an integrated data foundation that can drive big data, Cloud and AI-driven insights to create meaningful business outcomes for customers. This combination enables AVEVA to grow and diversify the industries it serves as well as continue to expand its footprint in existing and new markets and geographies.

Together, AVEVA and OSIsoft can provide full-stack solutions that span edge, plant, and enterprise deployment models, strengthening AVEVA’s position as a global leader in industrial software. With a combined 93 years of operating expertise and experience, they share a history of meeting the rapidly changing and evolving needs of their industrial customers, built on foundations of customer centricity and world-class talent. In addition to sharing a complementary solutions portfolio, this transaction further validates AVEVA’s leading position in digitization and IIoT.

OSIsoft’s PI System enables customers to collect, normalize, store, and stream real-time, high-fidelity operational data to applications, analytics, and AI and ML platforms. PI System acts as a single system of record for operations data, designed for massive cloud-enabled scale and data sharing across enterprises, and enables insightful operations decision making. OSIsoft works with over 1,000 of the world’s leading power and utilities companies, 38 of the Global Fortune Top 40 oil and gas companies, all of the Global Fortune Top 10 metals and mining companies, 37 out of 50 of the world’s largest chemical and petrochemical companies and 9 out of 10 of the Global Fortune Top 10 pharmaceutical companies.

Building Stakeholder Value and Improving Sustainability

The complementary product offerings of AVEVA and OSIsoft will allow the combined company to continue to generate significant value for its stakeholders by creating new opportunities for innovation using new and emerging technologies. The two product suites are open and interoperable, and many customers leverage both solution sets today. As a combined entity, AVEVA and OSIsoft can further deliver on their sustainability goals, driving significant benefits and value for their customers. With broader, deeper scale and scope to lead the digital transformation of the industrial sector, the combined company will drive greater efficiencies and sustainability for many diverse essential industries, including consumer packaged goods (CPG), pharmaceutical, water and wastewater, and utilities, creating strengthened product offerings.

Commenting on the agreement, Craig Hayman, CEO of AVEVA, said: “Combining AVEVA and OSIsoft is yet another significant milestone in our journey to achieving the ambitious growth goals that we have set. This will not only help us serve existing customers better but also open the flood gates to new opportunities which will accelerate the delivery of our digitization vision. Data has been enabling organizations to more effectively determine the cause of problems by allowing them to visualize what is happening in different locations, departments and systems.  This agreement will enable our customers to improve business processes as well as eliminate inefficiencies. We are extremely proud to be moving into the next chapter with an even stronger solutions portfolio as well as an ever-increasing and robust customer base which continues to make us leaders in our sector.”

OSIsoft founder and CEO Dr. J. Patrick Kennedy added: “Joining forces with AVEVA enhances and extends our ability to deliver on our key commitments to our customers, partners and employees. Together we will be better able to service the largest digital transformation projects in history, including across industry 4.0+ and IIoT. AVEVA’s interest in OSIsoft is a testament to our talented team, and the extraordinary value of the PI System as the real-time streaming data infrastructure that powers the industrial world. Today’s announcement is the culmination of a thoughtful search for a respected organization that would mesh with our own strong mission- and customer-driven culture.  The next chapter in PI’s fifth decade will be exciting for our employees and customers, and I look forward to my continued involvement in my new role as the largest individual shareholder in the combined company and as Chairman Emeritus to ensure we realize the full benefits of this transaction.”

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