Less than two months after Microsoft announced its plans to buy mid- market accounting software giant Great Plains, the two companies received a green light from antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission.
Great Plains issued a statement that the FTC said “the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act has been terminated.”
The acquisition was announced in December, and Great Plains expects it to close early in Microsoft’s fourth fiscal quarter, which ends on June 30, 2001.
The deal represents something of a departure from Microsoft’s normal strategy, in that it puts the company directly into the packaged applications business for a vertical market.
In recent years, Great Plains has been signing up customers for its application service provider service, where it hosts clients’ software at a Great Plains site.