Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging Acquires ER Mapper”, read the headlines of all geospatial portals and blogs. That was just a few days after Leica acquired Acquis Technology. Then it was Infotech Enterprises buying the majority stake in Geospace Integra one day, the other day it was 1Spatial’s acquisitions in Ireland and Scotland. That was followed by Rolta’s acquisition of Orion and then came probably the mother of all acquisitions till date – Tom Tom’s bid to buy out Tele Atlas.

Mergers and acquisitions happen for several reasons: Companies want to grow their geographic footprint, acquire niche technology or solutions and create greater value addition, increase market share and so on. Though mergers and acquisitions are not new in geospatial industry, of late this trend has caught up and the industry reported a slew of buy-outs and mergers in the recent past. Commenting on the trend, Rajesh Mathur, President, ESRI India, says, “I think, globally, the geospatial industry is going through a consolidation phase and companies are building alliances that can lead to mutual synergies. In some cases, the objective is to partner with businesses with complimentary core competencies which would help both the companies in moving up the value chain in their customer engagements. In some other cases, it would help in scaling up the operations leading to better utilisation of the resources.”

Terming the trend a positive one for all industry stakeholders and that it reflects the increasing value and relevance perceived in GIS technology, BVR Mohan Reddy, Chairman and Managing Director, Infotech Enterprises, says, “In the past, we saw GE take over Smallworld, some years ago Telvent acquired Miner & Miner and more recently Pitney Bowes bought MapInfo. The focus of these acquisitions has been to move up the technology value chain and more effectively address markets like energy, utilities and location intelligence.”