Microsoft set to swoop for Navision
Fresh from his battles with the US Supreme Court over anti-trust allegations, Bill Gates' Microsoft has emerged as the likely buyer for Danish mid-market software vendor Navision.
Although neither company would comment on the deal, a statement filed with the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, where Navision is listed, said its shares had been transferred to an ‘observation list’ as the company ‘considers a possible strategic transaction’.
According to business software analyst Dennis Keeling, a merger of Microsoft and Navision would significantly impact on the financial software market for SMEs.
‘If the interested party is Microsoft this would be a significant problem for the industry as it has already acquired Great Plains in the US,’ he said.
Keeling singled out Navision’s enterprise wide mid-range product – Axapta – as software set for ‘international deployment’ adding that it was ‘ideally suited to Microsoft’s .NET strategy’.
But Sage dismissed the possible deal as a threat to its market position.
Sage finance director Paul Harrison told Accountancy Age.com: ‘We expected it’, but was quick to add that there was little competitive overlap as ‘Sage serves different customers.’