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T.E. Raja Simhan

Chennai , Dec. 12

The US-based Trimble has acquired @Road Inc, an American company with software development centre in Chennai, for $496 million.

After deducting @Road's net cash position of $79 million, the transaction enterprise value was $417 million, according to information available at @Road web site. Both are listed on the US Nasdaq exchange.

Trimble, makers of Global Positioning System-based navigation equipment for mobile devices, will acquire all of the outstanding shares of @Road for $7.50 per share.

@Road recently expanded its presence in Chennai by inaugurating a new centre at Tidel Park, an information technology park.

The second centre in the city for the company provides mobile resource management solutions and has a capacity to have about 400 employees.

It has, so far, invested Rs 30 crore in the Chennai development centres, which has 160 IT professionals working on research and development, quality assurance, technical support, business development and marketing.

@Road's solutions enable clients to locate and manage mobile workers in the field and to connect mobile workers to real-time corporate data on demand.

The company's clients include AT&T Lightspeed, SBC Communications, Qwest Communications, Telstra and British Telecommunications.

The acquisition of @Road expands Trimble's investment and reinforces the existing growth strategy for its mobile solutions segment.

@Road has developed domain expertise and a field service management capability within its MRM solution to address challenges faced by a variety of industries, including transportation, distribution, telecommunications, cable, field service, utilities, facilities management and public works. This complements Trimble's existing domain expertise in the construction supply, direct store delivery, public safety and utilities industries.

Global market

According to Frost and Sullivan, the emerging MRM segment is expected to grow to $2.6 billion by 2010 from $1.2 billion in 2006. With the acquisition of @Road, Trimble is positioning itself to capitalise on this growing, global market opportunity.

Trimble expects total 2007 revenue between $1,140 and $1,170 million. Of this, approximately $80 million to $85 million in revenue is expected to come from the acquisition of @Road, the Web site says.

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