Oslo, 16 March 2007
Ontopia and Bouvet announce that Bouvet has acquired all shares in Ontopia. Bouvet is a Norwegian consulting house of more than 300 consultants, which has had a strong focus on Topic Maps for a number of years. Today Bouvet has around 40 consultants building Topic Maps-based solutions. According to the sales agreement, Bouvet acquires all of Ontopia's employees, partners, and customers, as well as the Ontopia Knowledge Suite (OKS). The move further strengthens Bouvet's Topic Maps focus.
Bouvet has over the past few years built Norway's leading consulting team on Topic Maps, and has developed more than 40 solutions for customers like Norway Post, the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, and the Norwegian Consumers' Council. Last month saw the launch of both the citizen's portal for the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city, and TheGovernment.no. Both launches have received wide media coverage.
Ontopia and Bouvet have had a close partnership over many years, and together delivered solutions like Kulturnett.no (Norwegian cultural portal) and the city of Bergen portal. The acquisition makes Ontopia part of a much larger entity, with the resources to take the Ontopia vision forward.
"Getting Ontopia's deep Topic Maps competence on board at Bouvet is very exciting for us. It strengthens our ambition to deliver a broad range of Topic Maps-based solutions. Given today's focus on semantic standards the timing is perfect," says Ole-Jørgen Tallaksrud, head of business development at Bouvet.
"We were looking for alternative ways to grow, and found Bouvet to be the most attractive option. Bouvet's broad competence complements our own narrower focus very well," says Ontopia's CTO Lars Marius Garshol. "We believe we can achieve much more as part of Bouvet than we were able to on our own."
"Ontopia has played a decisive role in establishing Topic Maps as an important technology, both in Norway and internationally," comments Steve Pepper. Steve has been chair of Ontopia's board until the acquisition. "I'm delighted that Bouvet, with their competence and professionalism, now take over this inheritance and carry it forward."
For more information, please contact:
Ole-Jørgen Tallaksrud, Bouvet, head of business development.
Email:
Phone: +47 91 36 18 89
Lars Marius Garshol, CTO of Ontopia until the acquisition.
Email: Phone: +47 98 21 55 50
Sverre Hurum, Bouvet, CEO, Bouvet.
Email: Phone: +47 23 40 60 00Labels: acquisition, bouvet, norway, ontopia, topicmaps
