BRAIN FORCE HOLDING AG takes over with immediate effect 100 percent of shares in SolveDirect.com Internet-Service GmbH, Vienna, thereby extending its product portfolio in the growth market of Software as a Service. SolveDirect is expected to achieve sales in the range of EUR 5 million and an EBIT margin of 20% this year. The profitability of SolveDirect is expected to clearly increase following integration into the BRAIN FORCE group thanks to existing distribution channels and economies of scale.

 

BRAIN FORCE has acquired SolveDirect, which in the past has realized excellent results in terms of both sales and profit, for EUR 9 million. One third of the purchase price will be paid using BRAIN FORCE’s own stock. Two thirds of the shares are subject to a lock-up for the next 6 / 12 months.

 

By this acquisition, BRAIN FORCE completes its IT management software suite which can now be sold as “Software as a Service”. This will reduce sales costs and also implementation times at the customers' premises, a benefit which is of particular importance to SMEs.

 

The results for the first half year will be published on August 27, 2007.

 

 

SolveDirect is a provider of IT service management software which is fully compliant with the ITIL standard. SolveDirect's product range will complete the BRAIN FORCE IT management suite.

 

By this move, the BRAIN FORCE group, a managed service provider with a matching product range, will enter a growth segment which, according to analysts, already today has a volume of some EUR 1 billion in Europe alone and is expected to see an annual growth rate of approx. 25 percent.

 

Using the SolveDirect technology, the BRAIN FORCE IT management suite can now be offered as “Software as a Service” (SaaS). Against this background, this latest take-over helps BRAIN FORCE to serve particularly medium-sized companies by delivering its software extremely conveniently and flexibly in the form of a service. To be precise, BRAIN FORCE will take care of the software operation, so that customers need not contribute any of their own know-how or resources. Currently there is no competitor who can fulfil these requirements and is therefore able to address the medium-sized market. This will greatly support BRAIN FORCE's future growth pattern.

 

A major benefit of the SaaS concept is associated with the software being offered by sales partners all over the world with no need to build up integration knowledge locally. This will considerably speed up market entry in new regions which can be successfully achieved with much reduced upfront investments. BRAIN FORCE already announced on June 19 the establishment of a new subsidiary in the USA which will be responsible for selling BRAIN FORCE's complete IT management suite to the world's largest IT market.

 

SolveDirect serves about 150 customers including Sparkassen Informatik, Allianz, Generali Versicherungen, Media Markt, Karstadt and Hornbach. Furthermore, the company maintains close business relationships with integration partners such as T-Systems, Atos Origin, Siemens Business Services and Hewlett Packard.