Some of my musings are pure conjecture provoked by a pre-Christmas news release that lacks any of the details that existing customers would be interested in. I had a hope that by playing the fool I would be able to provoke some actual concrete information from the involved parties. But heck, so far we don’t even have a blog post from Stephen Abrams on the matter…

You’re right, existing SirsiDynix customers would be protected from any unexpected fee increases for their existing services.

I also agree with you that we’ll probably see new conditions and increased fees for libraries that want to purchase a new service (say, the already heavily-pushed Rooms). But a potential gold mine for Vista is for libraries jumping off an existing-but-failing ILS (Voyager, anyone?) to join the market leader. Vista gets to start with a blank page for writing up contracts with these customers; and in the relatively volatile ILS marketplace of the past few years the market leader is going to look like a safe bet for administrators — even if it is more expensive to get on board now than it would have been last year, say.

Of course, I’m aware that my musing / conjecture also verges on fear-mongering, which might scare libraries into SirsiDynix’s arms now before Vista has a chance to revamp contract terms and fee schedules.

a) Vista is a technology equity firm. This market has traditionally been made up of founding owners, then some large companies who had little to do with the ILS, then some venture capitalists. Vista is more like Fransisco, the company that just bought Ex Libris and Endeavor. How these equity firms impact the somewhat quaint and old fashioned (yet still loved by librarians) ownership models is yet to be seen.

b) SD’s previous ownership was under a tenure fund managed by Seaport Capital. This fund, started in 1997, was used to fund the initial investment in Sirsi (before Sirsi’s acquisition of Dynix). So, the fund was expiring and SD decided to go after new sources of funding and Seaport Capital wanted to pay out to their investors in the expiring fund.

c) Vista is now the sole owner of all private shares of the company. Before this buyout, Dynix’s owner (Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst) still owned a small stake, as did a handful of individuals.

I agree with some of Dan Scott’s musings, but wonder what the basis for some of his conjecture is. For example, most ILS contracts have maintenance schedules, inflation caps, etc. I’m not sure how SD will get more contract fees out of customers without modifying existing contracts. As for service fees, I imagine they will go up if libraries contract for more services, but the contract terms still apply as in the first case.

All of these kinds of press releases require a little reading between the lines, and enough of these acquisitions and mergers have taken place over the last few years that we should all be looking forward to determine the future of the marketplace. Many things could happen, and many things probably will.