Activant Solutions Inc. was a
privately held American technology company specializing in
business management
Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of managemen ...
, software serving retail and wholesale
distribution businesses headquartered in
Livermore, California
Livermore (formerly Livermorès, Livermore Ranch, and Nottingham) is a city in Alameda County, California. With a 2020 population of 87,955, Livermore is the most populous city in the Tri-Valley. It is located on the eastern edge of Californ ...
.
Activant provided tailored
proprietary software
Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and i ...
, professional services, content,
supply chain connectivity, and analytics to the automotive, hardlines and lumber, and wholesale distribution industries.
The company employed more than 1,700 people in California, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
.
Activant Solutions was acquired by
Apax Partners
Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of December 2017, the firm, including its ...
and merged with
Epicor
Epicor Software Corporation is a business software company based in Austin, Texas founded in 1972. Its products are aimed at the manufacturing, distribution, retail and services industries.
Epicor provides enterprise resource planning (ERP), cus ...
in May 2011. The combined entity is continuing as Epicor.
History
Activant was incorporated in 1971 as Triad Systems by Henry M. Gay, William W. Stevens and Donald J. Ruder. It was incorporated in 1972. The company installed its first system at Northgate Auto Parts in
Mill Valley, California, on July 7, 1973. It retained the Triad name until 2003.
Automotive aftermarket
Prior to automation, the
automotive aftermarket—involving the distribution of automotive replacement parts—used
3x5 index cards for
inventory control
Inventory control or stock control can be broadly defined as "the activity of checking a shop's stock". It is the process of ensuring that the right amount of supply is available within a business. However, a more focused definition takes into acco ...
. The founders of Activant created a computer, the Series 10, that used new, cost-effective
disk drive
Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...
s to store the inventory information for the automotive parts distributors. The Series 10 gave the automotive parts distributors, also known as
jobber
Jobber may refer to:
Athletics
* Job (professional wrestling) - A professional wrestler who routinely loses a match.
* Wichita Jobbers, a minor league baseball team in the Western Association from 1905 to 1911
Commerce
* A person or corporation ...
s, inventory control. It was offered at $50,000–$100,000 per unit.
[ Editorial Note (2011-03): This might refer to the ''Industrial Distribution'' interview available via HighBeam Research at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-179522755.html .]
In the 1980s, the Series 10 was followed by the faster Series 12. The increased storage capacity of the Series 12 enabled Triad to offer customers the first computer based parts catalog, eliminating the racks of parts catalogs used in auto parts retailers. The company also created a system for larger warehouse distributors, the Triad 80. These systems helped enable communication capabilities between jobbers and warehouse distributors and suppliers.
Expansion to new markets
In 1980, Francisco Ramiro Diaz, Activant's founder, observed that the hardlines market had similar inventory management and accounts receivable requirements as jobbers and warehouse distributors. To cater to the hardware retailers, the company created a
point-of-sale
The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoic ...
(POS) cash terminal system. In 1984, the company modified the POS system to serve
lumberyards.
By 1984, Activant (then Triad) launched the first electronic parts catalog (simply called Electronic Catalog) paper catalogs, and by 1990, provided customers with more than 8.8 million automobile parts available electronically. In 1987, the company began selling a stand-alone Electronic Catalog on
CD-Rom (renamed as Triad LaserCat) to smaller automotive jobbers who did not have an Triad system. In 1989, the company began to develop the Triad Prism system as a future replacement for the Series 12 for the automotive aftermarket. The system for the hardlines and lumber industry was upgraded, including a new
UNIX operating system
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and o ...
, and became Triad Eagle by 1992.
[
]
Activant Vista
In 1993, Triad released Triad Vista, a product movement service which compiled monthly point-of-sale movement reports and showed how products performed against their competition and in the market in general. Vista brought in over $12 million annually.
In the mid-1990s, Triad acquired assets from the companies of Gemini, CSD, Eclipse, and Ultimate to aid the company in the lumber and automotive industries. The Radio Frequency (RF) Suite was also launched during the mid-1990s. RF-enabled barcode scanning.
The company launched Triad Eagle for Windows in 1997.
By 1997, CCI purchased Triad. Glen Staats became CEO of CCITRIAD. One year later, the owners of the company, Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst brought in a new CEO, Mike Aviles, to replace Staats. Aviles was CEO from late 1999–2004. Over the next five years, the company's customer base continued to expand and entered into partnerships with TrueValue, ACE, and Do It Best hardware stores.
21st century
Under Mike Aviles, Activant’s revenue grew to over $225M.
In 2003, the company changed its name from CCITRIAD to Activant Solutions Inc. In 2004, the board of directors brought in Larry Jones as CEO to drive an aggressive growth strategy. Pervez Qureshi, current president and CEO, took over in May 2006.
Activant purchased Speedware Corporation Inc., including its operating divisions, Enterprise Computer Systems (ECS) Inc., Prelude Systems Inc., OpenERP Solutions and Speedware Ltd., in 2005. That same year Activant acquired The Systems House Inc., a technology company for distributors primarily in the automotive aftermarket and office products industries, and Prophet 21, which aided Activant in the wholesale distribution market.
In May 2006, Activant was purchased by the private equity firms Hellman & Friedman
Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts ...
, Thoma Cressey
Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring software companies and has over $114 billion in assets under manage ...
, and JMI Equity.
In 2007, Activant acquired Silk Systems Inc., including its wholly owned subsidiary Silk Dimensions Systems Inc., a software company for the Canadian home improvement, wholesale distribution and building materials markets. This was followed by the acquisition of Intuit Eclipse Distribution Management Solutions Business, an enterprise software provider in wholesale distribution.[Activant Completes Acquisition of Intuit Eclipse Distribution Management Solutions Business: Acquisition Strengthens Company’s Position as a Premier Technology Provider to the Wholesale Distribution Industry. August 17, 2007. Press release retrieved from www.Activant.com on February 11, 2008.]
References
External links
Activant's Official Web Site
Activant's Wholesale Distribution Web Site
Activant's UK Web Site
Activant's UK Supplier/Services portal
{{Livermore, California
Defunct technology companies of the United States
Privately held companies based in California
Software companies established in 1971
Companies based in Livermore, California
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
1971 establishments in California
2011 disestablishments in California
Software companies disestablished in 2011
Defunct software companies of the United States
2011 mergers and acquisitions