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Six Apart News & Events

January 21, 2011

Six Apart Japan to be acquired by Infocom and assume responsibility for Movable Type and Six Apart brand

by Nob Seki - Post a Comment

We are happy to announce that Six Apart KK (SAKK), a Japanese subsidiary of SAY Media, has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Infocom, a Japanese IT company, as of February 1, 2011. As part of this transaction, SAKK will assume responsibility for the worldwide Movable Type business, and the Six Apart brand.

We at SAKK are very excited to continue our investment in Movable Type, the Movable Type Open Source project and the worldwide community of developers, publishers and bloggers around the world that use Movable Type.

Below is a translation of Infocom's press release announcing the agreement. And be sure to read the SAY Media blog post about the announcement. And stay tuned -- there is more to come!

Nob Seki
General Manager of SAKK

Infocom strengthens the expansion of its social media service business

Acquires Six Apart KK, the domestic leader in CMS, as a subsidiary

February 21, 2011 (Tokyo, Japan)
In order to strengthen the expansion of our social media service business, Infocom Corporation (Shibuya Ward, Tokyo; President & CEO: Takashi Yoshino; hereinafter referred to as "Infocom") concluded a contract to acquire all shares of Six Apart KK (Minato Ward, Tokyo: General Manager: Nobuhiro Seki; hereinafter referred to as "SAKK"), the domestic leader in CMS, from Six Apart Limited (San Francisco, U.S.A.; CEO: Matthew Sanchez; hereinafter referred to as "SAUS"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SAY Media Inc. (San Francisco, U.S.A.; CEO: Matthew Sanchez).

Overview

In our mid-term management plan beginning from March 2010, Infocom positioned net business as a priority business field and has worked actively to create new business. In the field of net business, Infocom has enlarged its contents transmission and e-commerce businesses with a focus on mobile phones. Infocom has also attempted to establish a new business which would serve as a third pillar. Also, social media service (hereinafter referred to as "SMS") has come to the forefront of the Internet industry. In order to strengthen activities in the SMS field, Infocom invested in the SMS developer Jibe Mobile last October and concluded a contract to acquire all shares of SAKK to further strengthen our activities in this field.

SAKK conducts development, sales and support for Movable Type, a tool which possesses the top share in Japan for updating of homepage information and posting management of blog articles. Furthermore, many customers use TypePad, a product which enables end-users to enjoy blogging.

This acquisition of SAKK shares by Infocom is based on the following judgments:

  • As the use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook continues to increase, we believe that links between such services and existing homepages/blogs will become even more important.
  • SAKK has just begun to develop business for "zenback", a service which is capable of connecting SMS and existing Internet media. We expect further development of this business in the future and believe that faster growth and expansion of ad networks can be realized through cooperation with our company.

Furthermore, SAKK will acquire intellectual property rights which are held by the party to the share acquisition (SAUS). These rights are associated with existing products and services such as Movable Type. SAKK also acquired rights for using the trademark "Six Apart", as well as licensing rights for additional software.

The Infocom Group shall actively seek expansion of our net business by adding our specialty of SI to the base established by Movable Type and then conducting sales to major corporations. Also, we will increase the synergistic effect of existing contents transmission/e-commerce through the development of advertising which utilizes "zenback", a service which SAKK has just begun developing. "zenback" is provided as a blog part which is used to display a variety of related information such as related article and Twitter in personal blogs.

Additionally, Infocom shall increase the efficient utilization of our business base. We shall strengthen our partnership with SAKK and shall enhance support for customers using existing products and services. Infocom shall also make every effort to ensure that users and partners can continue to use SA products and services with peace of mind.

  • by Nob Seki in News & Events - January 21, 2011 at 4:30 AM
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