Although to many this is old news (especially to Vettro customers) it is still quite an interesting development in the world of mobile enterprise application development. Below are a few quick implications for you to mull over and the entire press release towards the bottom.
Implications
- Human – In a previous life I had the pleasure of working with folks from both Vettro and Antenna and after what seems to be a brutal deal for Vettro employees I can’t help but think of what will happen to all the old Vettro folks.
- Customers – The press release is worded in such a way that makes you wonder if there will be some customers ‘not picked up’ by Antenna. The ones that do move over will have to go through some disruption as they migrate to Antenna from Vettro…
- IT – IT shops of old Vettro customers that move over to Antenna will feel the pain associated with change (not always bad). Whatever they were used to doing before will change. What will it mean for them? Easier? More or less labour intensive? Fewer headaches?
- End Users – This is the one that concerns us the most here since many times this group is forgotten altogether.
- How will the new application affect their processes?
- Do expectations need to change?
- Adoption concerns?
- Were there reasons why Vettro was chosen in the first place over Antenna? Are those reasons still valid?
- Competitive – There is one less player… does this mean that there is room for a few more to come in? There is a strong likelihood that many current Vettro customers will simply switch… But this acquisition does present opportunities for a few others companies to come knocking at those doors.
- Strategic -If you are a current customer you should take advantage of this time to reassess what you need and consider other options if they are viable. It is always good to entertain some vendors to see what they might offer.
For some further opinion you can also head over to Gartner and read Nick Jones post. Feel free to add your comments and let’s make this a discussion… 
Here is the press release from Marketwire dated November 11, 2008:
JERSEY CITY, NJ — (Marketwire) — 11/10/08 — Antenna Software, delivering real business mobility to the world’s most demanding enterprises, today announced it has acquired strategic assets of Vettro Corporation, a privately held company based in New York that specialized in mobile applications for the field service industry.
In the deal, Antenna acquired assets that include Vettro’s products and intellectual property; select customers and related customer contracts and alliance and channel partnerships. The acquisition builds on Antenna’s decade-long expertise in mobility and brings additional expertise across several industry sectors including IT service management/help desk, local delivery and courier companies, transportation and logistics, utilities and the broader field service space. The acquisition also reinforces the long-term viability of Antenna’s platform-based mobility approach and further strengthens the company’s position as the global leader in the mobile enterprise application platform market.
“Through our acquisition of select Vettro customer and partner relationships, Antenna is executing on its plan to expand channels for growth of the Antenna Mobility Platform(TM) (AMP),” said Jim Hemmer, president and CEO, Antenna Software. “By bringing Vettro’s customers onto AMP — and applying our world-class service and support — we will provide the security, reliability and control customers need and deserve today, combined with the vision and long-term value mobility brings for years to come.”
Antenna will continue to service the acquired Vettro customer contracts and will provide support for the suite of V360 mobile application products accordingly. When appropriate, Antenna intends to help customers migrate from Vettro’s V360 solutions to the AMP platform, an open and flexible architecture that leverages IT investments and serves as a central hub to bring together the primary elements of a comprehensive mobile deployment. This will enable customers to take advantage of a broader set of services and capabilities as a result of this acquisition.
“As a customer of both Vettro and Antenna, our company is in a unique position to take advantage of the benefits of the Antenna Mobility Platform going forward,” said Dave Rudzinsky, SVP and CIO, Hologic. “The opportunity to mobilize both our field service and field sales organizations using the same technology infrastructure will give us more scale, utilize IT resources more efficiently and enable a consistent, strategic approach to mobility.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Antenna Software
Antenna Software provides the Antenna Mobility Platform(TM) (AMP), which enables organizations to design, build, deploy and manage mobile applications quickly and cost-effectively. Delivered as a managed service or on premise, AMP supports multiple enterprise systems and mobile devices from one unified environment. Powered by AMP, Antenna’s AMP(TM) mobile business solutions provide field sales, service and IT support organizations with pre-built, configurable mobile applications that help improve field productivity, customer care and profitability. Having a decade of success with Global 1000 customers, Antenna is recognized by industry experts and leaders for its outstanding commitment to quality and service.
Copyright @ Marketwire
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
It seems like it is only a matter of time. As enterprise mobility moves from email/PIM to LOB applications (are we not there yet!), corporations will be looking for a level of support and confidence in their mobile application vendors. While the larger vendors such as SAP as just announcing true mobile LOB products, the development has mainly existed with companies like Vettro. It is a little disconcerting as Vettro was probably ahead of the curve, but adoption has lagged behind. Hopefully acquisitions like this will not hamper innovation.