Cape Clear signs on with Workday

07-02-2008

by Deirdre McArdle

Dublin-based technology firm Cape Clear has been acquired by US company Workday for an undisclosed sum.

Founded in 1999, Cape Clear has been recognised as one of the leading Enterprise Service Bus firms by research firms Gartner and Forrester. Its solutions enable users to connect any content, services or software across the internet using web services.

Web services is the name developers have given to a way of making all applications on a network interoperable and available over the internet or any IP-based network. Web services provide a standard way to discretely package any piece of data (such as information on a database, a specific query, business logic) and make that data accessible to anything else (such as another database, a mobile handset or an external partner's system).

Cape Clear's Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) platform is already a component of Workday's on-demand ESB service. While the Cape Clear product will no longer be available on a standalone basis, it will form a part of Workday's integration on-demand service. The US firm has said it will continue to support Cape Clear's existing customers.

For Workday, the acquisition will strengthen its integration on-demand strategy, with Cape Clear essentially becoming Workday's integration team. "Integrating business applications has always been much too difficult. At Workday, we made integration a core capability from the very start, and adding Cape Clear to our portfolio serves to deepen our focus and capability in this vital area," said president of Workday, Aneel Bhusri.

Workday is based in California, where it employs about 200 staff. Under the terms of the deal Cape Clear will continue to be based in Dublin, where around 60 staff will be located. Furthermore, Workday has said it is likely that it will invest in the Irish facility to develop it as a product development and support centre.

"Workday has been one of the most vibrant examples of Cape Clear's vision for enterprise integration, enabling customers to focus more on business results and less on the nuts and bolts of complex IT projects," said Annrai O'Toole, chief executive officer of Cape Clear. "Joining Workday represents a huge opportunity for the Cape Clear team to deliver the future of integration for enterprise solutions."