Brightree acquires Pacware

ATLANTA - Software vendor Brightree added 800 HME customers last week when it acquired Pacware, a key competitor in Sacramento, Calif.

Brightree now serves roughly 2,500 HME customers or about 30% of all independent HME providers, said Brightree CEO Dave Cormack.

This was Brightree's second acquisition in the past six months. In July, it added 300 customers when it acquired Computer Applications Unlimited (CAU).

The Pacware deal brings Brightree several benefits, Cormack said. It gives the company a strong West Coast presence, which it lacked; experience in home infusion and pharmacy products; and a solid customer base "of providers that we think are going to be around" as the market changes, he said.

Brightree will continue to support Pacware's client-server product but also will give Pacware users the opportunity to switch to Brightree's web-based platform, Cormack said.

Prior to the acquisition, Pacware was working on a web-based solution to go along with its existing client-server product. Work on that product, which would have competed against Brightree, will now stop, said Pacware owner Byron Maynard.

For Pacware, the deal brings a giant influx of financial resources and technical expertise, he said.

"I have more toys now than I could have ever dreamed of having as the sole investor," he said. "I have things they don't have, and they have things I don't have. I love this industry, and now I can do more in it."

Maynard will join Brightree's management team as an executive vice president, overseeing the Pacware product. Pacware's 20 employees will also join Brightree, which now employs about 300 people.