Compassoft buys Wimmer Systems

Another move from Compassoft (see the recent Masters of Metadata post). On the heels of their purchase of UK-based Spreadsheet Auditing Limited, the company announced today that they are buying Missouri-based Wimmer Systems and Wimmer's DaCS product.

DaCS (Data Compliance System) adds compliance features like tamper-prevention, auditing, and digital signatures to Excel spreadsheets. This helps companies who use spreadsheets for corporate reporting comply with regulations like 21CFR11 and SOX 411.

Paul Bach, Compassoft's CEO gave me some additional details:

Wimmer Systems and their technology DaCS is today resold by ABB, the $22 billion a year Swiss multinational.  DaCS is currently installed and used at over 60 of the largest pharmaceutical and life sciences firms worldwide including Alcon, Allergan, Amgen, AstraZeneca, BASF, Baxter, Bayer,  Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Immunex, Janssen, Medtronic, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Wyeth, etc.  ABB resells the technology as part of their Life Sciences and Financial compliance efforts.  DaCS which is an EXCEL plug-in written in VB and it provides Compassoft with real-time logging and spreadsheet change control, the ability to rollback changes to an exact moment in time, selective enforced change documentation, electronic signature control over changes, electronic authorization and approval.

DaCS broadens the Compassoft product line, certainly, so it's another smart technology acquisition.

It says even more,though, about Compassoft's strategy, and the support they have from their investors. Compassoft knows that enterprises require credible references for what they buy, and they like to buy from other large companies.  The Wimmer acquisition (and its relationship with ABB) adds a very impressive set of customers and references, and lines up ABB as a high-profile worldwide sales arm and systems integrator for Compassoft's product line.

Super smart shopping.

Note: 21 CFR Part 11, the FDA guidelines for trustworthy electronic records, requires companies to employ procedures and controls designed to ensure the authenticity, integrity and when appropriate the confidentiality of electronic records, and to ensure that the signer cannot readily repudiate the signed record as not genuine.