8,000 software firms targeted by investors

Vasile Baltac, chairman and CEO of the SoftNet group that last year sold a software and IT services company to Omnilogic, the biggest IT&C distributor on the local market, thinks IT mergers and acquisitions will continue in the next few years with software being the field of choice. He believes this trend will be facilitated by the large number of software companies operating in Romania (over 8,000) which do not have the necessary resources to hold out on the market in the future without access to financial resources and know-how. “We have too many software firms and most of them do not meet minimal requirements of competitiveness in terms of technology, technical equipment and quality assurance. On the other hand they have a huge potential for innovation, which will draw the attention of foreign companies. Acquisitions will mainly target the software sector, with European firms in particular showing an interest in opportunities to use nearshoring, i.e. the outsourcing of a business to neighbouring countries, which do not differ much in terms of time zones. Such opportunities have appeared after the accession,” Vasile Baltac told.