Basset, the Swedish revenue management software firm, has been purchased by Enghouse Systems for USD10mn. You can see the press release here.
Though their strengths lay in managing wholesale and roaming revenues, Basset has long been a minor player in the business assurance market. Formerly called Bassetlabs, they have offered FMS and RA tools for over 10 years – but with little sales success. Rival software developers invested more heavily in their assurance products, and soon eclipsed Basset in terms of market share, riding a wave of growth that eluded Basset. Nevertheless, Basset continued to pitch themselves to the revenue assurance and fraud management community, though their misreading of the market was exemplified when they became the leading vendor sponsor of GRAPA. Basset’s current product portfolio makes little mention of assurance; we shall have to see if their new owners decide to exit the market.
Enghouse Systems is a publicly-traded Canadian software conglomerate, whose strategy appears to be based around acquiring underperforming enterprise software firms. Basset is just one of three firms they have already bought this year. Enghouse is growing rapidly, and are on course to earn over USD200mn in revenues by year end. Purchasing Basset should help Enghouse to increase sales in Europe.
