Financial investors today value software companies more than hardware companies. Notice how long-time industrial companies such as Emerson and Rockwell Automation and Siemens and ABB tout themselves as software companies.
Schneider Electric picked up a substantial software portfolio with its Invensys acquisition several years ago. It used those assets to invest in engineering software company AVEVA gaining more than a 50% ownership position. Later, AVEVA picked up OSIsoft.
One of the values of attending conferences includes lunch and break ad hoc conversations. I was chatting with ARC vice president Craig Resnick at the Ignition Community Conference last week. He explained the news that Schneider Electric is completing acquisition of AVEVA.
He told me Schneider Electric intends to, among other matters:
- accelerate the transition to a subscription and cloud-based industrial SaaS model at AVEVA, allowing AVEVA to fully focus on the business model transition, on its customers and its technology;
- maintain AVEVA’s software as fully agnostic and to preserve its business autonomy;
- maintain AVEVA’s existing corporate headquarters in Cambridge, UK;
- maintain and develop AVEVA’s R&D presence in the UK and accelerate investments in R&D; and
- support AVEVA’s existing plans to enhance its operations in Cambridge, UK and also remains committed both to offering apprenticeships and maintaining active research links with universities in the UK, including Cambridge.
Further reading from Yahoo! News and Bloomberg:
Schneider Electric SE agreed to buy out minority shareholders in Aveva Group Plc in a deal that values the UK industrial software company at £9.5 billion ($10.8 billion), the latest foreign takeover of British tech company.
Schneider will pay £31 per share, the company said in a statement on Wednesday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. Under the terms of the deal, the company, which already owns 59.14% of Cambridge, England-based Aveva, will pay about £3.87 billion for the remaining equity.
