• With the US technology firm acquiring IOTA partner Software AG, the IOTA community expressed concerns considering the regulatory landscape.
• Software AG chief assured that the development won’t sever the ties between them and IOTA.

In the latest development, US technology investor Silver Lake acquired majority shares in IOTA Software partner Software AG. The takeover process for Software AG started earlier this year in April and has finally come to a conclusion.

Mosel Bidco SE, the holding company behind Silver Lake has acquired the majority of shares (around 63 percent) in Software AG by the end of June. After the second acceptance period, which ended on July 17, Silver Lake now holds 84.29 percent of the shares in the software company based in Darmstadt. If there are no objections from authorities, the takeover of Software AG, which would cost over three billion euros, is expected to be completed this year.

However, IOTA enthusiasts raised concerns about the US technology firm acquiring the IOTA partner. As we know, the US regulators have been going hammer and tongs after crypto-linked firms. Thus, doubts have emerged whether this acquisition will sever ties between IOTA and Software AG. The Vice President of Innovation and Architecture for Software AG, Christoph F. Strnadl, however. said that he doesn’t see any major concerns here. 

“I don’t see any danger at the moment @silverlake_news sees the great integration potential of @SoftwareAG since its entry – and this also includes the integration of off-chain (off- #Tangle ) world (= #ERP etc) with the on-chain world,” he said. 

IOTA Software AG Integration

During the official integration between IOTA and Software AG, Christoph F. Strnadl, explained three major use cases for the same. Initially, Software AG’s Internet of Things (IoT) platform, Cumulocity, will be integrated with IOTA technology. This integration had five specific use cases for creating a machine-to-machine (M2M) economy. By utilizing IOTA’s capabilities, Cumulocity planned to enhance identity identification, data provenance, data integrity, security, and micropayments using blockchain and tokens.

In his recent comments, Strnadl said that he’s in fact more confident regarding Software AG’s ties with IOTA. He wrote:

In addition, we are already thinking about the time of a decentralized coordinator for #IOTA and whether or how we can get involved as @SoftwareAG – that still has to be planned and decided in detail. I’m more than confident! So I have more than enough attractive @IOTAtopics in my portfolio to go into any discussion with @silverlake_news!

In late 2021, Silver Lake made a financial commitment to Software AG by investing 344 million euros as a convertible bond. The investor’s representatives gained enough trust for the takeover, and Peter Schnell mentioned this in a report. The new owner doesn’t plan to make major changes initially but intends to remove Software AG from the stock exchange. Due to the upcoming takeover, the company’s free float fell below ten percent, causing it to be dropped from the MDAX and TecDAX indices on July 25.