OK, we’re not going to deny it. There’s no question the big acquisition news this week is that Michael Kors is buying Jimmy Choo for $1.2 billion. Handbag sales aren’t as hot as they once were, and shoes are looking pretty good to Kors.

But in our world, there’s much bigger news: on Tuesday, Sage (The Sage Group plc) announced that it is acquiring Intacct for $850 million in cash and options and bringing it into the Sage family of products. What does this mean for Intacct’s customers, employees, and partners? Well, in the short term, not much. Intacct has an outstanding executive team that has been in place for years, and Sage, recognizing that, is not messing with it. Intacct will continue to operate as an independent company in San Jose, California, and is still adding employees.

The products and relationships that have defined the excellence of Intacct are going to remain the same. We expect there will be more capital for accelerating Intacct’s development and go-to-market offering. Eventually, we can expect to see more integration with other Sage products, but it might take a little time to see where Intacct fits into the lineup.

The good thing is, there’s no reason to think that anything is going to be taken away from the Intacct universe, while there’s a lot of reason to believe that more will be added. Sage has a few products that could be compatible with Intacct and may be integrated in the coming months.

In the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant report on Cloud Core Financial applications, Intacct was ranked at the top of the Visionaries quadrant, while only Oracle ERP Cloud and Workforce ranked above it, in the Leaders quadrant. The reason for that placement was that the latter companies have greater ability to execute, in Gartner’s terms, because of their capitalization and global footprint.

With the weight of Sage’s resources behind it, would Intacct now also be eligible for the Leaders quadrant? It’s all conjecture until the next time Gartner produces a Magic Quadrant report for this market, but it seems entirely possible.

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to seeing what handbags Sage has to go with those sweet new Intacct shoes.

To learn more about the first-ever Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Core Financials, you can download a copy of the report here.

View a demo of Intacct or sign up for a trial company here.

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