SAP buys Datango to boost education offerings

Software giant SAP has announced plans to acquire fellow German company and erstwhile partner Datango, which makes workforce performance software, to broaden the company's portfolio in the education space.

In a statement Monday, the company said Datango's content development, translation and deployment capabilities for electronic training, documentation, and user support will enable SAP to develop valuable integration with other existing tools, leading to additional value for customers. These integrated tools will address end-to-end user training, knowledge management and performance support challenges, it added.

"The workforce performance tools market has become increasingly strategic and critical to our customers' success, and Datango is a proven leader in this space," Markus Schwarz, senior vice president and global head of SAP Education, said in the statement. "By having its own product in this market, SAP can now deliver and accelerate innovations and produce robust content for our customers in the future."

SAP also said that with Datango, the two companies will capitalize on a trend in education software by creating applications that contain tools for authors, such as e-collaboration, self-help scenarios and auto-teaching functions.

SAP did not disclose the price of the deal, which is expected to close during the first quarter of this year. Datango, which was founded in 1999, has had a longstanding and productive relationship with SAP, it added.

News of the acquisition comes just days after SAP reported its "best ever" full year and fourth-quarter performances that beat analysts' estimates. Fourth quarter software revenue increased 16 percent to 1.74 billion euros (US$2.2 billion), while full year 2011 software revenue jumped 22 percent to 3.97 billion euros (US$5 billion).