Deals done this past week


11 Oct 2010

An overview of the week in deals in the Irish technology sector, including Sage Ireland’s accounting deal with FDC, and Yahoo’s acquisition of Dapper.

Sage strikes €300k accounting deal with FDC across Ireland

An accounting, taxation, financial and business advisory services firm has signed a deal valued at more than €300,000 with business software giant Sage. FDC, with a 15,000 client base, plans to roll out Sage Accounts and Payroll.

Under the terms of the partnership, which has a potential combined value of €300,000 over three years, Sage Ireland will also provide additional resources at FDC and a training programme to upskill staff at 22 FDC offices.

Sage solutions include Sage 50, Sage MicroPay and Sage QuickPay and the company is aiming to add a minimum of 100 sites per annum. 

FDC offers a wide range of accounting, taxation, financial and business advisory services to a diversified portfolio of clients throughout the Republic of Ireland. The company’s first and foremost business objective has and continues to be the delivery of a quality service to clients proportionate to their needs.

Yahoo! acquires Dapper for undisclosed amount

A statement from Yahoo! has announced its acquisition of San Francisco-based Dapper, a US start-up company that provides dynamic display ads.

“Smart Ads will continue to be an important component of display advertising and the acquisition of Dapper will help Yahoo! to more efficiently deliver dynamic and personalised ads for customers across more of our network,” said Frank Weishaupt, vice-president, North America ad marketplaces at Yahoo!.

Percana sells web-enabled system to British Friendly

Irish outsourcing and software provider Percana has secured a deal with life and pensions firm British Friendly to provide a web-enabled system to manage income protection, online quotes, policy serving and more.

British Friendly and its affiliates will utilise the web-enablement capabilities of Percana’s solution to provide an end-to-end online processing facility for IFAs that is user friendly and highly efficient.

The new service will be rolled out in Q1 of 2011 and is central to British Friendly’s plans to significantly grow its business. The rollout to the IFA network through The Exchange portal is also intended to help British Friendly manage running costs, as extended services will be made available to registered IFAs.

Established in 1999, Percana Group now employs more than 250 people from its headquarters in Park West Business Park in Dublin. The Percana Group provides mission critical software, outsourcing and consultancy services to the Life and Pensions industry.

Tech giants agree not to poach from one another

Silicon Valley giants Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit and Pixar have entered into an agreement to not attempt to poach one another’s staff as part of a settlement with the US Department of Justice.

The companies are now prohibited from soliciting one another’s employees.

The competition for highly skilled engineers among these firms – four of whom have operations in Ireland – is intense, and there have been accusations of cold calling and other attempts to lever away engineering talent.

Some of the companies – for example, Apple and Google – already have agreements in place not to directly solicit one another’s employees.