Kana Software

KANA Software, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Computer software, Customer service management software, Customer relationship management software
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, California
Key people	Mark Duffell (Chairman of the Board, President and CEO)
Products	KANA Enterprise, KANA Express, LAGAN Enterprise
Revenue	US$100 million (2012)
Number of employees	350 - 500 est. (2013)
Website	www.kana.com

KANA Software, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT) and provides on-premises and cloud computing hosted customer relationship management software products to many of the Fortune 500, mid-market businesses and government agencies.

Mark Gainey founded KANA in 1996 to market a software package designed to help businesses manage email and Web-based communications. It grew around this core offering. In 1999, KANA Communications (as it was then known) acquired Connectify followed by Business Evolution and NetDialog. In 2000, KANA made its then-largest acquisition, Silknet Software. The purchase price was $4.2 billion, despite the fact that both companies were relatively small. Silknet was an early multichannel marketing software company. Industry analysts were generally cool to the purchase though some said it made sense strategically. In 2001, KANA merged with BroadBase software. KANA was a major stock market success during the dot-com bubble, and while it contracted significantly during the following downturn, it remained in business as an independent company through the following decade.

In 2010, Accel-KKR acquired KANA's assets and liabilities for approximately $40.82 million. The same year, KANA acquired Lagan Technologies, a government-to-citizen customer relationship management company based in Ireland. The software was rebranded as LAGAN Enterprise, a package that compiles information from sources such as 311 calls and map overlays to improve resource management. In 2011, KANA purchased Overtone, which allowed companies to monitor social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The software was rebranded as KANA Experience Analytics.

In 2012, KANA bought Trinicom, a Dutch company that makes mid-market customer service multichannel ecommerce, especially in the BeNeLux region. Less than three months later, KANA purchased Sword Ciboodle, a company that specializes in contact center software. Industry analysts generally looked favorably on the acquisition; Ciboodle's established business process management gave KANA products for a full-featured CRM package for customer service with social media marketing. "Between the two companies, almost every aspect of customer relationship experience... is covered." The combined organization operates under the KANA brand. Ciboodle's CEO, Mike Hughes, who had led the company prior to its purchase by Sword, left the company after KANA's purchase was finalized. He was replaced by KANA executives.