September 8th, 2009
RightNow acquires social networking company HiveLive
RightNow on Tuesday said it will acquire HiveLive, an enterprise social networking company, for about $6 million in cash.
In a statement, RightNow, which provides customer relationship management software as a service, said it plans to add HiveLive’s technology to its platform. The move is the latest by vendors to provide so-called “social CRM.”
HiveLive will be integrated with RightNow’s November release. Increasingly, social media technology is being built into enterprise applications as a means to navigate corporate data and foster collaboration.
RightNow said HiveLive will allow it to offer prebuilt communities as a customer service channel, incorporate forums and blogs and mix it with its knowledge engine.
As for the financial details, RightNow said that HiveLive will add expenses of about $1 million per quarter due to headcount. The company reiterated its 2009 revenue target, but cut its non GAAP earnings per share target to a range of 27 cents a share to 31 cents a share. The previous target was 29 cents a share to 31 cents a share.
Wall Street is expecting 2009 earnings of 32 cents a share on revenue of $149 million for 2009.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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