News
Microsoft to Acquire Great Plains
- By Scott Bekker
- 12/21/2000
Microsoft Corp.
announced it has reached an agreement to acquire
Great Plains Software Inc., a supplier
of mid-market business applications. The acquisition is a stock purchase, with
each share of Great Plains stock to be exchanged for 1.1 shares of Microsoft
common stock.
The acquisition of Great Plains will allow Microsoft and
Great Plains partners to develop their businesses by integrating solutions
based on the .NET platform.
Once the acquisition has been completed, Great Plains will
become the Great Plains division, reporting jointly to Jeff Raikes, group vice
president of Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Services Group, and David
Vaskevitch, senior vice president of the Business Application Division at
Microsoft. The Great Plains division will continue to develop, market, and
support its business management solutions.
“In 19 years of operations Great Plains has proved to be one
of Microsoft’s most innovative partner,” said Microsoft president and CEO Steve
Ballmer. “Microsoft and Great Plains see the future of business applications
for small and medium-sized companies in the same way.” – Isaac Slepner
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.