KANA Software Acquires Ciboodle

Kana Software, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of customer service solutions delivered on premises or in the cloud, today announced its acquisition of process-based contact center provider Sword Ciboodle from the Sword Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Sword Ciboodle acquisition adds new complementary product offerings and industry expertise, extending and enhancing the overall Kana value proposition, particularly around agent desktop, business process, and case management in the contact center, and social CRM communities on the Web.

This latest deal comes just months after Kana acquired Trinicom, a provider of cloud-based Web customer service and customer interaction management. That acquisition, announced in April, expanded Kana's market reach to midsized businesses globally via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.

"KANA is creating a new global customer service leader that is increasingly the choice for midsized and large enterprises alike, serving both the public and private sectors, with solutions available on-premises or in the cloud," said Mark Duffell, president and CEO of Kana, in a statement. "With the acquisition of Ciboodle, we are bringing together two significant enterprise players in the customer experience management arena with strengths in depth for both the contact center and for Web customer service."

"The combination of Kana and Ciboodle effectively accelerates each company's product roadmap by an estimated 12-18 months, allowing the new company to focus on our customers' more strategic initiatives in emerging disruptive areas, such as cloud computing, mobility, and big data analytics, that will clearly differentiate Kana in its established markets and help penetrate new ones as well," Duffell added.

"Since 1986, Ciboodle has pioneered software- and services-related solutions that help customer-centric organizations deliver consistent service so their customers can get answers to their questions quickly, simply, and in ways that create a positive and beneficial relationship," said Sword Ciboodle CEO Mike Hughes, in the statement. "Going forward, the combination of these two companies who share a very similar culture will fuel increased dominance in a wide array of markets, including retail, communications, financial services, utilities, and government, with the ability to grow in emerging and adjunct markets as well."

Sword Ciboodle delivers modular CRM software, including a unified sales and service desktop, case management solution, Web self-service platform, and customer community platform, to contact centers worldwide for advanced customer engagement across multiple social channels. Its customers span 12 countries and include Bally Fitness, BT, JP Morgan Chase, Sears, Sony, Standard Bank, and Vodafone. The company has offices in Chicago, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Indonesia.

Continuing to operate under the Kana name, the newly combined entity will have more employees and office locations across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia from which to support a growing base of customers numbering some 900 organizations.

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