TriTech Software Systems buys Tiburon

San Diego-based TriTech Software Systems today announced the acquisition of Tiburon. The deal expands TriTech’s customer base by more than 350 sites, which means that TriTech supports installations in 82 of the 100 largest municipalities in the United States, according to a company press release.

“This is a very strategic acquisition for us,” TriTech CEO Chris Maloney said in a prepared statement. “Both TriTech and Tiburon are well-known leaders in the industry, and the combination of the two will be hard to beat.”

Both TriTech and Tiburon historically have focused on the public-safety market, providing solutions designed to help first responders operate more efficiently in a variety of roles and environments, from computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems to records-management systems (RMS) and data warehousing.

With the Tiburon purchase, TriTech will have more than 2,700 agency customers. Although the raw number of Tiburon customers is notable, the fact that a large percentage of them are large Tier 1 customers promises to be “significant” for TriTech’s future revenue stream, according to Chris McAllister, TriTech’s vice president of business development and marketing.

 “[Tiburon has] about 140 customers, and we’ve got about 140 customer in that Tier 1, large-implementation space,” McAllister said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Really, the acquisition was about growing the customer base and getting all of these talented people [that work at Tiburon].”

Existing Tiburon customers will continue to receive product support, McAllister said.

 “There’s some overlap on product, and we’ve got to figure that out. But, for now, we’re going to be supporting both products, because they’ve got a real nice install base,” he said. “Anything that’s currently supported, we absolutely are supporting; there’s no end of life [for a Tiburon product] because of this acquisition at all.”

The Tiburon acquisition is TriTech’s fifth acquisition during the last seven years, McAllister said.

“In this market, it’s tough to grow organically,” McAllister said. “I think we grow almost 10% per year organically, and the rest of our growth is inorganic.”

 Tiburon is based in San Ramon, Calif., and has three other offices in North America—Portland, Montreal and Long Island, N.Y.—McAllister said.

“We’ve already got four offices, so [the Tiburon purchase] puts us up to eight,” he said. “Does that make sense? I don’t know—maybe. I think we have to sit down and look at that.”

When asked if the future of TriTech’s office locations is still to be determined, McAllister said, “Absolutely.”

Although officials for TriTech and Tiburon have discussed the notion of combining for years, acquisition talks became “serious” during the last few months, McAllister said. The acquisition was an all-cash deal, with TriTech having private-equity support, he said.

Maloney expressed optimism about the potential benefits for all stakeholders associated with the deal.

“We look forward to supporting Tiburon customers on their current platform for many years to come while also offering them a new future with an award winning, top-tier product line that will allow Tiburon customers to upgrade to the latest and greatest technology over time,” Maloney said in a prepared statement.

“The combined company is without a doubt the largest in the industry, with more software and service capabilities than any other. We look forward to partnering with the blue-chip Tiburon customer base as we continue to grow and evolve our capabilities.”