Vignette Moves Into Collaboration With Intraspect DealVignette Moves Into Collaboration With Intraspect Deal

Vignette Corp. made a bold move into collaboration, reaching an agreement to acquire Intraspect Software Inc. for $20 million in cash and stock. The addition of Intraspect's collaborative-workspace software augments Vignette's suite of Java-based applications designed to help companies manage, present, and collaborate around unstructured content.

Vendors in the content-management, portal, and collaboration arenas have recognized that companies are interested in hooking up with vendors that offer integrated software suites that can help them address a wide range of content-related challenges. The Intraspect acquisition, revealed Monday, represents Vignette's second major move to address this trend, following its purchase of portal-software vendor Epicentric last October. It comes as Vignette is in the midst of a financial recovery that has it inching closer to profitability.

Other vendors also have been combining in similar ways. Documentum Inc. bought eRoom Technologies last year to add workspace-style collaboration capabilities to its content- and document-management platforms. In February, Open Text Corp. bought portal-integration vendor CoreChange to complement its line of collaboration and knowledge-management tools. And Documentum, InSci, Interwoven, and Stellent all have purchased digital-asset management vendors to expand the types of content their products can handle.

Vignette says it will continue to offer Intraspect's collaboration platform and vertical-market offerings as they stand and that it will integrate the technology with its content-management and portal products as quickly as possible. The deal, which calls for Vignette to pay Intraspect shareholders $10 million in cash plus 4.2 million shares of its stock, is subject to shareholder approval.