An organization that reports news is now making it – Reuters, which actually earns most of its money through dealings in the financial market, plans to acquire ClearForest, “a provider of text-driven intelligence solutions.”
That description, provided by ClearForest’s site, doesn’t use very plain language, but a statement from Gerry Campbell, head of a search and strategic development group at Reuters, helped clarify exactly what sort of results this deal will produce. “This technology has the potential to impact the user experience across all Reuters products,” he began.
“ClearForest has developed a superior, commercially proven technology in the field of Text Analytics that will make it immensely easier for our customers to find, understand and navigate our content,” Campbell then said. There, that’s better. Press releases may put an overly positive spin on things, but at least they’re understandable.
Interestingly, neither the press release nor Reuters itself seemed to be as well-informed (and/or forthcoming) as Globes, an Israeli publication. According to Reuters: “The deal calls for Reuters to buy all of the outstanding shares of the privately held Israeli-American company. Terms were not disclosed.”
And according to Globes: “Reuters Group . . . has acquired Israeli text analysis technology developer ClearForest Ltd. for about $30 million.” Globes reporters Shmulik Shelah and Merav Ankori also gave a clear picture of just how small ClearForest is in comparison to that price tag: between its locations in Massachusetts and Israel, the company has just 31 employees.
From ClearForest’s perspective, that may make its acquisition by Reuters all the more important. As ClearForest CEO Barak Pridor pointed out, “This will allow us to take our products and services to a whole new level and reach a much broader customer base.”
