Microsoft acquires Teamprise assets

CHAMPAIGN – Remember Victor Kiam? The guy who liked Remington razors so much, he bought the company?

Well, Microsoft Corp. recently took a page from his playbook.

The software giant so liked a product made by the Teamprise division of Champaign-based SourceGear LLC that it acquired SourceGear's Teamprise-related assets.

Neither SourceGear nor Microsoft is disclosing terms of the transaction.

But four SourceGear employees – two of them based in Champaign – will become Microsoft employees as a result of the deal.

Microsoft plans to integrate functionality from the product – Teamprise Client Suite – into its Visual Studio product line beginning with Visual Studio 2010, according to a company press release.

The Teamprise division of SourceGear traces its origins back to late 2004 and began product development in 2005.

Teamprise's plan was to help make new tools from Microsoft accessible to programmers who use non-Windows platforms.

Its first product made Microsoft's Visual Studio Team Foundation Server available to a broader range of users, including those who use Linux or Macintosh platforms.

Corey Steffen, the general manager of Teamprise and one of three partners in SourceGear, was not available for comment Monday.

But SourceGear founder Eric Sink said his company was in active negotiation with Microsoft for about six months before the deal closed last week.

"In essence, they (Microsoft) approached us, saying that their customers and partners were happy with our solution, but not happy they had to come to a separate company for it," Sink said.

Microsoft was "getting a message from the market that it (Teamprise Client Suite) needed to be part of the solution from Microsoft," he said.

SourceGear employs 27, but two software programmers in Champaign will relocate to Raleigh, N.C., to become part of a Microsoft team, Sink said. Also joining Microsoft will be two other SourceGear employees, one in India and one in Ireland.

Other employees assigned to Teamprise will remain with SourceGear and continue to serve Teamprise customers during a transition period.

After that, they'll refocus on SourceGear's other products, which include Vault and Fortress, Sink said.

Steffen "will remain here at SourceGear, but be on loan to Microsoft for about a year," Sink said.

Sink said it hadn't been the plan all along to sell Teamprise to Microsoft.

"We built the Teamprise business to run it. It was not designed to be sold," he said.

Sink said "nothing special" is planned for proceeds from the transaction.

"We'll share some of the funds with our teams and use some to continue operating the company," he said, adding that SourceGear is working on a new product that will likely be announced next year.

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