NICE acquires Orsus
NICE, a leading provider of security solutions, acquires Orsus, a pioneer in situational awareness, for an all-cash $22 million; critical incidents have led organizations to make massive investments in a wide range of security technologies and in corresponding manpower; trouble is, these security tools often exist in different silos, which lead to information overload, making it difficult to get the complete picture and manage critical incidents effectively; the combined NICE-Orsus solution addresses this problem
An important move on the situational awareness front, as two Israeli security companies merge. Ra’anana, Israel-based NICE will connect its security solutions and other third party security and safety systems to provide organizations with a unified view and automated response procedures.
NICE will be in a better position to do so as a result of its acquisition of Or Yehuda, Israel-based Orsus. Orsus’s Situator provides a framework for fusing data silos from disparate security and safety systems, as well as multiple command and control centers, into a single, holistic operational view and automating security procedures.
NICE says that the integration of Orsus’s solution with NICE’s security offering, including video, and vertical domain expertise, will enable NICE to provide a comprehensive pre-integrated portfolio of security management solutions aiming to protect city centers, transportation systems, critical infrastructure, and enterprise campuses.
The acquisition is expected to generate non-GAAP revenues of several millions of dollars in 2010 and to be accretive on a non-GAAP basis within one year after closing.
NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) is a global provider of advanced solutions that enable enterprises and security organizations to extract Insight from interactions, transactions, and surveillance. Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, NICE will be acquiring the security management solution assets of Orsus in an all-cash transaction for a total consideration of $22 million, subject to certain adjustments. The transaction is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and is anticipated to close toward the end of the fourth quarter of 2009.
NICE notes that critical incidents have led organizations to make massive investments in a wide range of security technologies and in corresponding manpower. Trouble is, these security tools often exist in different silos, which lead to information overload, making it difficult to get the complete picture and manage critical incidents effectively. Orsus’s Situator security management solution provides a framework for fusing data silos from different security and safety systems.
In addition, Situator’s open architecture enables integration with an array of security and safety alerting sources from different vendors, such as video surveillance systems, access control, intrusion sensors, alarm panels, fire and safety sensors, and radars, among others. It can also fuse and display information from Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS), to determine exact incident location, and how best to respond. The solution has been installed in many facilities around the world, and customers include American Electric Power, Aqua America, Israel Air Force, National Guard of the United States, Port of Houston Authority, Transnet Freight Rail, and Virginia Port Authority.
<“Adding this solution to NICE’s comprehensive security offering is a perfect fit to our strategy of building a unique offering that leverages our core competence in capturing, managing, and analyzing massive amounts of unstructured data, and combining them with state of the art proprietary security technology,” said Israel Livnat, president of Security Group, NICE Systems Ltd. “This acquisition follows a successful partnership with Orsus. The integrated solution will help our customers overcome the challenge of managing multiple siloed security and safety systems, for better protecting city centers, transportation hubs and critical infrastructure. We look forward to having the team of industry leading innovators from Orsus join NICE,” Livnat concluded.
“Joining NICE, a global security solutions provider powerhouse, is a great opportunity for Orsus” said Gil Weiser, CEO of Orsus. “Together, we’ll expand our global outreach to support the security needs of customers across a wide range of vertical markets.”
“As evident by our recent wins and strong backlog, our security business continues to generate significant growth opportunities, and we remain committed to further investing in, and developing it. The acquisition of Orsus serves as an important milestone in the execution of our strategy, and will fortify our strategic focus on leveraging NICE’s core competence in capturing, managing and analyzing massive amounts of unstructured data, to accelerate the success of our security and enterprise businesses,” said Zeevi Bregman, president and CEO, NICE Systems.
