February 12, 2002 - According to Gartner analysts, James Lundy, Mark Gilbert and David McCoy - Adobe Systems will succeed in its bid to acquire Accelio, a forms and distributed output management (DOM) vendor. Gartner thinks enterprises should ask Adobe about its plans for Accelio products. Gartner has published their first take of the acquisition. Earlier this month, “Accelio announced an agreement whereby Adobe will acquire the company for stock valued at $72 million at the time of the announcement. This deal follows a recent hostile takeover bid by OpenText, and some Accelio shareholders announcing an intent to sell their shares to OpenText. Although the boards of both companies have agreed to the sale, regulators and Accelio shareholders must also approve the deal. Accelio expects shareholders to vote on the deal in late March 2002. “Gartner believes that Adobe's bid for Accelio will succeed. Adobe has made the highest bid, and Accelio regards the firm as something of a white knight — particularly in light of the hostile takeover bid by OpenText. “Adobe wants to extend its ePaper platform, and buying Accelio gives it a large installed base of legacy Accelio forms and output management customers. Adobe says Accelio's products will also broaden the appeal of its ePaper platform by combining Accelio's electronic forms solutions with its Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) technologies. Accelio recently began to develop its interactive publishing capabilities, which will fit well with Adobe's network publishing strategy. “The combined companies will complement each other with channel diversity. Adobe is good at selling shrink-wrapped software while Accelio is good at selling software directly to enterprises. Importantly, the strength of the Adobe brand will open more doors for Accelio's sales staff. “The main challenge for the enlarged Adobe lies in developing a new product road map and communicating that to its customers. Adobe is not a DOM vendor, and this acquisition means that Adobe will be one of the largest software vendors to enter the DOM market. “Enterprises should ask for information from Adobe and Accelio on the direction of, and specific plans for, Accelio products even if confidentiality agreements need to be signed. This information will enable enterprises to understand what products Adobe might combine with others or leave orphaned, so enterprises can make appropriate plans.” Gartner, Inc. is a research and advisory firm that helps more than 11,000 clients understand technology and drive business growth. Gartner's divisions consist of Gartner Research, Gartner Consulting, Gartner Measurement and Gartner Events. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and consists of 4,300 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in more than 90 locations worldwide. The company achieved fiscal 2001 revenue of $952 million.