Vista Equity Laying Groundwork to Move Three San Diego Companies

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software investments, and currently has about $7.7 billion invested in a portfolio that includes Atlanta-based Aderant (law practice management software), Austin, TX-based Accruent (commercial property management software), and Carrollton, GA-based Greenway Medical Technologies (IT systems for physician practices).

The first of Vista Equity’s three San Diego acquisitions this year was Websense. The $1 billion deal that was announced on May 20 and closed on June 25. The network security firm was founded in 1994 with software that enabled corporations and other customers to prevent their employees from visiting non-business-related websites. The company went public in 2000, and expanded its offerings to include a variety of technologies that protect organizations from cyber attacks, data theft, and other types of Internet security breaches. At the end of 2012, Websense had more than 1,600 employees around the world, according to its annual report, including more than 500 in San Diego.

Vista Equity’s $800 million purchase of Qualcomm’s Omnitracs division was announced on August 23, and was completed three months later. Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) introduced the satellite-based fleet management system for long-haul trucking companies in the late 1980s, and generated enough cash from the two-way communications and tracking system to sustain Qualcomm’s development of its core wireless CDMA technology. In conjunction with the deal, Vista Equity said it also was acquiring Baltimore, MD-based Roadnet Technologies for an undisclosed price, and planned to combine Roadnet’s private fleet management software with Omnitracs. The Vista Equity buyout included Omnitracs operations throughout the United States, Canada, and South America, but the number of employees was not disclosed. Qualcomm did not disclose how many employees worked in its Omnitracs division. One estimate has the headcount at about 475 in San Diego.

Vista’s $1 billion buyout of the Active Network closed on Nov. 15, less than two months after it was announced. The Active Network, founded in 1999, provides Web-based online registration services for

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.