SAS To Buy ABC Technologies

SAS Institute Inc. will acquire ABC Technologies Inc., a developer of activity-based analytic management software, under a deal announced Wednesday. SAS will use ABC's software to strengthen its line of business performance-management products. Terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed.

Activity-based costing is used to break down the costs of specific business processes and activities, a key step in determining the profitability of particular products and services. ABC's software pulls accounting data from corporate general ledger systems to perform the analysis. "The ability to look at activities and see how profitable they are is absolutely critical today," says Current Analysis analyst Mike Schiff.

SAS will build ABC's activity-based analysis software components into its customer-relationship management, financial, and human-resource analytical applications. Adding product- and customer-profitability analysis capabilities to SAS' CRM software will be the priority, says Stephanie Kuhnel, SAS mergers and acquisitions strategy director. "This is going to complete our overall performance-management strategy," she says.

Stockholders of privately held ABC Technologies' will vote March 13 on the acquisition, but CEO Chris Pieper says enough proxies have been tendered to approve the deal. ABC Technologies has more than 4,300 software installations and reported sales of $32 million last year. The Beaverton, Ore., company will operate as a wholly owned SAS subsidiary once the acquisition is complete, and Pieper will become president of SAS' Active Performance Management program. ABC's 225 employees have been offered jobs with SAS.