Adobe spends $240 million to fill out Web product line

With today’s acquisition of Day Software, a Swiss Web content management software company, Adobe continues to fill out its enterprise software line. The two companies reached an agreement for Adobe to acquire all of the publicly held shares of Day Software.

Founded in 1993 in Basel, Switzerland, Day Software has 146 employees. The company reported 2009 revenues of 36.6 million Swiss Francs ($35.5 million). The company’s CQ5 product suite offers large customers — such as Hyatt, Paypal and BMW — Web content management, digital asset management, and social collaboration functionality.

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The acquisition follows a number of steps by the company to strengthen its enterprise business such as its $1.8 billion acquisition of web analytics leder Omniture last year. Interestingly, during the last week, the company has experienced some management changes within the enterprise division including the departure of former Omniture CEO, Josh James, as well as the promotion of David Wadhwani to SVP and GM of a newly formed Creative and Interactive Solutions business unit.

Adobe will integrate the new products into their enterprise portfolio, according to Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president and general manager of enterprise solutions. Day CEO Erik Hansen will join Adobe reporting directly to Tarkoff.

While Adobe currently offers enterprises strong tools for content creation and workflow automation, it has lacked a robust solution for managing this content on corporate websites (internal and external). The Day Software acquisition gives Adobe a viable option for customers looking at competitive solutions from players such as IBM, Oracle, Documentum, and Open Text.

Adobe said the acquisition will add to its earnings beginning in fiscal year 2011.

[image of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen via CNET]