The SirsiDynix Interview: LJ Talks Merger with Patrick Sommers and Jack Blount

-- Library Journal, 6/27/2005

Patrick Sommers, formerly CEO of Sirsi, is CEO of the new SirsiDynix while Jack Blount, formerly Dynix’s CEO, will remain with the new company as consultant.

LJ: You’re calling this a ‘merger of equals,’ but your web site says that Sirsi is acquiring Dynix. Who owns exactly what?

Sommers: This is a merger in terms of putting the organizations together, not a merger in the financial sense…Sirsi’s investors, Seaport Capital, and its three founders will own roughly 90 percent of SirsiDynix and Hicks, Muse [Dynix’s investors] will own between eight and ten percent.

LJ: Who will be on the Sirsi board?

Sommers: The board will remain the Sirsi board with the addition of Jack [Blount] and one representative from Hicks, Muse.

LJ: What kind of products are in the pipeline?

Blount: In today’s world we obviously have to look beyond ILS, so we’re developing RFID, self check, print management, and more. We’re constantly being challenged by new technologies our customers want help with.

LJ: What combination of services will we see?

Sommers: Both companies have similar portal products, but we’ll take the best of both and move them to one platform, creating one face for the public. Sirsi’s Rooms, a content management tool, will also be made available to customers on any platform.

LJ: When can the market expect to see release of the first joint products?

Blount: RFID within the year. You’re likely to see portal activity in the first quarter of next year. You will see many quick benefits, and quick wins. We have a lot of resources to invest in new products.

LJ: What does the merger mean for the Dynix-developed academic Corinthian system?

Blount: We remain focused and committed to Corinthian and our academic customers. We received Sirsi’s support for Corinthian before the merger, and compared Corinthian to [Sirsi’s] Unicornto make sure no functions were missing. Librarians will see an immediate integration with Sirsi before the product ships. We will be steering our academic customers towards Corinthian, which answers much of what ARL libraries have been asking for, such as Shibboleth.

LJ: How about your other ILS offerings, will both Dynix’s Horizon and Sirsi’s Unicorn survive?

Sommers: We’re not going to force our customers in either direction. We’ll let them make the decision on what system they want. We can support both platforms. We are very complementary, of the top five ILS vendors, we have the most in common. Both of our systems use Java and are built on standards.

LJ: What does this mean in terms of R&D?

Sommers: We’ll have a lot more resources to focus on our customers’ needs. And we will be able to eliminate some of the duplication of effort. For example, instead of creating two relationships with third party vendors, we’ll be able to create one. We are working on how we should structure the organization to maximize benefits for the library community.

LJ: What’s the biggest hurdle you face in this merger?

Sommers: We have to explain how we can support two technologies. We’re working with consultants on integration planning and structuring to maximize benefits. Possibly the biggest hurdle is dealing with rumors of past histories. They’re very real things that occupy our time. We made a lot of mistakes with DRA, but we’ve learned from that experience. We both are well equipped to manage this, we’ve have successes with many previous mergers. We’re just asking people to trust us for six months, and we’ll prove ourselves.