CDC Software acquires WMS supplier Catalyst International

The acquisition completes a consolidation trend in the warehouse management system market.

By Corinne Kator, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 9/7/2007

Catalyst International, a best-of-breed warehouse management system (WMS) supplier, is being acquired. CDC Software, a supplier of a broad range of enterprise software applications and a subsidiary of CDC Corporation, announced this week its agreement to buy Milwaukee-based Catalyst. The deal is expected to close by the end of the month.

“This acquisition will expand our global supply chain offerings and base of blue-chip customers,” says Eric Musser, CEO of CDC Software. Catalyst’s logistics consulting practice, he adds, will also be an asset to CDC.

This is CDC’s second acquisition in the supply chain software space. In 2003, CDC acquired Swedish supply chain management software provider Industri-Matematik International, known as IMI.

The Catalyst acquisition completes a consolidation trend in the WMS industry. After best-of-breed WMS supplier Provia Software was acquired last year, Modern reported that Catalyst was perhaps the only mid-sized, best-of-breed WMS supplier to remain as a stand-alone company. With Catalyst’s acquisition, the only independent WMS suppliers in the market now are the two market leaders—Manhattan Associates and RedPrairie—and a host of small, niche WMS companies.

“The market for best-of-breed WMS companies is tough,” says analyst and consultant Steve Banker of ARC Advisory. “The competition with ERP companies has gotten stiff.”

When Modern ranked the top 10 supply chain execution software providers earlier this year, Manhattan and RedPrairie topped the list, followed by ERP providers SAP, Oracle and Infor. With just $41 million in revenue, Catalyst did not make the list.