As announced here Jonas Software (through our parent Constellation Software) acquired Compusource Corporation on August 7, 2009. Today’s post will introduce Compusource and their products as well as provide some insight into why we have made this acquisition and what it means for our existing customers.

Company Overview
Founded in 1971, Compusource is a leading provider of mission critical software applications, hardware and services for the Field Service & Construction Management, Metal Service Center and Moving & Storage markets. With offices in California, Georgia and Texas Compusource employs over 40 professionals that together support over 450 clients across North America. The Compusource products include:

• Ascente: A modern Windows based business and service management system for Air Conditioning, Plumbing and Electrical Service Contractors
• Contrac2: An older character based business and service management system for HVAC, Plumbing, and Electrical Service Contractors
• MCMS: A leading software product for the metal service center industry
• VanS: The most widely used business management software in the moving and storage industry, handling all phases of an agent's business

Jonas is excited to be joining forces with Compusource to further expand in all three verticals. With an average tenure of over 15 years the Compusource management team brings a wealth of industry and technology experience to our company and we are pleased that they will all continue with us following the acquisition.

New Market Opportunities
Metal Service Centers and Van Lines are new markets for Jonas that present their own unique challenges and opportunities. The acquisition of the MCMS and VanS businesses give us a strong position in these markets from which we can continue to grow. Working with the Compusource team we will be looking to increase sales as the economy improves but also hope to make further acquisitions to increase scale. We hope to be able to offer multiple brands in these markets much like we now do in the Construction space.

Multi-Brand Strategy in Construction
Jonas started the multi-brand strategy last year with the acquisition of VMS (www.ventussoftware.com) in June 2008 and have enjoyed success with it thus far. In keeping with this program Compusource will continue to operate as a separate entity and their construction products (Contrac2 and Ascente) will compete with our other brands. The mechanics of our multi-brand strategy is relatively straight forward: We operate each of our companies as standalone businesses with separate sales, support, service and development teams. Each product competes in the market on its own two feet and we leave it up to our prospective customers to select the system that is right for them just as they did when these companies were owned by different groups.

At Jonas we do not believe in a one size fits all approach. Each of our three companies has a long history and loyal client base which have taken the software systems in different directions over time. While each product fulfills basically the same needs they each operate differently with their own unique strengths. We are committed to continued development and support on all of our packages for the long term and it is our objective to build lasting relationships with clients with our ‘Software for Life’ program.

Strategic Advantage
Though our companies operate as standalone businesses we do look to create value when bringing them under a single ownership group. We target three main areas of advantage across the group:

1. Cross Platform Products: There are a number of new applications and modules under development that we plan to integrate across multiple products. Our first test with this concept will be an online mapping application that integrates work order locations from our core systems with GPS coordinates for trucks out in the field on a map supplied by Google. Jonas is currently running this product in Beta and VMS and Ascente will look to add this later in the year. Future shared products could include document management, service portals, online labor time entry and mobile applications.
2. Best Practice: Though run separately our companies share best practice with each other and compare high level metrics. Our goal within the Jonas group of companies is continuous improvement across all our product and service offerings. Having multiple groups competing and pushing each other helps us maintain focus and momentum and provides very detailed benchmarks. All Jonas companies also participate in best practice sessions with other industry leading companies from across Constellation software.
3. Centralized Administration and Marketing: These activities tend not to add specific value for our customers and we have therefore looked to save money by centralizing them so that we can shift investments to development and support.

Moving forward we continued to be excited for the potential of products at all three operating groups. We will continue to invest in our products to keep up with new technology and expand our service offerings to better support our clients. We are also not done with acquisitions. While we would love to buy products in spaces where we are not as strong we are not averse to acquiring more direct competitors in any of the Construction, Moving & Storage or Metal Center spaces. The key for us is to be able to take the resources, knowledge and expertise of our larger operating group and combine it with the agility and client centric focus prevalent in smaller individual businesses. We believe that our multi-brand strategy will help us better achieve this to the benefit or all our clients.