It is
not a common occurrence for competitors to partner together except in the case
of an outright acquisition or merger, but that is exactly what we have done
with the folks at Celenia. The seeds for this partnership were planted
almost 1 ½ years ago in, of all places, Euro Disney outside of Paris. Celenia was a paid sponsor at the Directions
EMEA event (Scribe was there as an attendee) and as part of their sponsorship
was presenting their product to an audience of NAV partners. Torben Kragelund from Celenia was presenting
and, in an unsolicited act of graciousness, introduced Lynn Harrington from
Scribe, telling the audience that our product was another good integration
solution for NAV of which the partners should be aware. This was a real classy
move from a classy organization. Later
that year at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, TX Scribe’s
CEO, Mark Prestipino, along with Lynn sought out Torben and Karina Nielsen to
thank them for their generous act. As
the conversation unfolded, it became obvious that our respective offerings (and
companies) in many ways were different and that each of our respective
strengths were highly complementary.
Celenia
is a services and development company that has extensive domain knowledge in
both the Dynamics NAV and AX products while Scribe is dedicated to a single
integration platform across the Dynamics application product line (and beyond)
and has achieved much success with the Dynamics CRM and GP products. While Celenia has significant offshore
development capacity and could offer extensive services for partners (neither
being strengths of Scribe), Scribe has developed an extensive network of over
800 resellers across the globe. Being a
Denmark-based company, Celenia has a greater presence in Europe, while Scribe
has naturally seen great success in North America. Putting these things together led all of us
to the logical conclusion that the right kind of partnership could yield a much
more complete and richer offering for Dynamics partners and customers.
The
conversation really started to heat up again at Convergence US in New Orleans
and Directions EMEA in Barcelona.
Following those events, we got together to conduct a deep technical dive
on our respective products and to sketch out a potential relationship. We did discuss an acquisition or merger, but
both companies felt that while we had significant common ground around integration
for Dynamics NAV and AX, our business plans were different enough that an
outright combination would not have yielded enough benefit, and would more than
likely dilute our ability to achieve our respective visions. We decided instead to create a deep, long
term product partnership where we both shared greatly in the success of our
product in the Dynamics NAV and AX markets.
After
a few months of due diligence, spirited discussions, and respectful
negotiations we finally inked our partnership on June 30th. The highlights of the partnership are:
- Scribe and Celenia will consolidate their integration offerings for Dynamics NAV and AX on the Scribe Insight platform. Scribe Insight and the related products for NAV and AX will be available exclusively through Scribe’s worldwide network of over 800 resellers
- Celenia will take over the development of the Scribe Adapter for Dynamics NAV and create a new Scribe Adapter for Dynamics AX
- Celenia will incorporate many of the unique capabilities of their CRM Connector for Dynamics NAV and AX into these new and enhanced Scribe Adapters for NAV and AX
- Celenia will enhance the existing solution templates and develop additional solution templates and accelerators for the most common data integration scenarios
- Celenia will provide expanded services and advanced training to Scribe partners to support the demands of their Dynamics NAV and AX customers
- Existing customers of the Celenia CRM Connector for Dynamics NAV will be offered a low cost and seamless upgrade path to Scribe Insight and the Adapter for Dynamics NAV
- Scribe and Celenia will sell and support the Celenia CRM Connector for Dynamics AX until the new Adapter for Dynamics AX is available with a free upgrade path for customers to the Scribe Insight platform
- Scribe will be the front line of support for all Scribe Insight products while Celenia will provide engineering-level support for the products for NAV and AX
Check out the pictures from our virtual contract signing with Mark Prestipino in New Hampshire, USA and Rex Clausager in Aalborg, DK.
We have a lot of work ahead of us to fully realize the potential of this partnership. I am confident that the spirit of cooperation that led to this partnership will continue and will yield great results in the months ahead. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements around our new and improved Adapters,additional (and better) templates, broader services offerings, better training solutions, etc. We ask our partners to keep us informed of how we are doing. As much as we try, we may not get everything right the first time and your honest feedback will be greatly appreciated.
For more information, please see the press release and Frequently Asked Questions about the relationship.
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