SAP to buy risk-management software firm

SAP announced on Monday plans to acquire Virsa Systems, a regulatory-compliance and risk-management software company.

Virsa--already one of SAP's partners and investment portfolio companies--is the latest acquisition target of the business applications giant. Over the past year, SAP has increased its pace of buyouts to fill out its product portfolio.

"Companies are looking to adopt an integrated view of governance, risk and compliance, instead of the current reactive and fragmented approach," Shai Agassi, SAP product and technology group president, said in a statement. "Acquiring Virsa...represents a key component of our strategy to be the primary source of enterprise risk-management support, regardless of company size or industry segment."

Over the past year, SAP and Virsa have worked together through a marketing, sales and development agreement. Under that agreement, Virsa's core product, Compliance Calibrator, has been resold as an add-on to mySAP ERP.

SAP, meanwhile, has deployed Virsa's Compliance Calibrator and Access Enforcer to more than 40,000 users worldwide. Virsa is also a third-party developer for SAP's NetWeaver, which is middleware designed to connect SAP data to other applications.

Virsa, a privately held company based in Fremont., Calif., will become part of SAP America. Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close next month, were not disclosed.

[zhaol]

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