SSA Global buys HR apps maker Boniva Software

SSA Global Technologies Inc. said Monday it has purchased HR (human resources) management applications maker Boniva Software Inc. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Five-year-old Boniva, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is a privately held developer of Web-based applications for managing staff recruiting, training and skills tracking. Chicago-based SSA Global said it will integrate Boniva’s technology with its own SSA HCM (human capital management) applications suite.

SSA Global’s latest acquisition comes less than a week after it announced plans to buy CRM (customer resource management) maker Epiphany for US$329 million. That deal is scheduled to close by October.

SSA Global was formed in 2000 around the assets of bankrupt System Software Associates Inc. Since then, the company has used a string of acquisitions to assemble a portfolio of ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications primarily targeted at the manufacturing industry.

SSA Global’s strategy is to maintain the legacy applications it buys, and to retain their customer bases, while also using some of the acquired technology in its newly developed line of more modern applications based on J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) and XML (Extensible Markup Language). Boniva’s technology will complement SSA HCM’s existing applications for HR processes like benefits and payroll management, SSA Global Chief Executive Officer Mike Greenough said in a written statement.