RICHFIELD, Ohio, July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ProQuest Business Solutions, a subsidiary of ProQuest Company and a leading provider of electronic parts catalogs, performance measurement and e-commerce solutions for the automotive, construction, outdoor power and powersports markets, has acquired certain assets and technologies of Active Web Services, LLC (AWS), a software company that specializes in warranty process management and service component operations.
"This acquisition signals our intent to provide more comprehensive aftersales solutions for OEMs and dealers in our served markets. We will work closely with current AWS customers during this transition to ensure we exceed their expectations," said Andy Wyszkowski, president of ProQuest Business Solutions.
"We are very excited about this acquisition as it will combine the best of both companies to better support our valued customers. ProQuest's industry leading parts and service applications, performance measurement tools and e- commerce solutions combined with AWS's premier warranty solution will strengthen the value proposition for our customers and the industries we serve," said Scott McEwen, vice president of ProQuest Business Solutions. "Many of our customers and prospects have requested, and we can now deliver, the best warranty solution available."
According to Vladimir Ainbinder, Chairman of the Board of AWS, "The depth and sophistication of ProQuest Business Solutions dramatically extends our ability to provide superior enterprise-class application software, services and support to the AWS user community. Additionally, we can now accelerate the delivery of capabilities and functionality designed to further enhance the operational and financial performance our application software contributes to our customers' bottom line."
Active Web Services is ranked by AMR Research as the #1 rated warranty solution and is a Microsoft Gold partner.
About ProQuest Company
ProQuest Company is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a leading publisher of information solutions for the education, automotive and power equipment markets. We provide products and services to our customers through two business segments: Information and Learning and Business Solutions. Through our Information and Learning segment, which primarily serves the education market, we collect, organize and publish content from a wide range of sources including newspapers, periodicals and books. Our Business Solutions segment is primarily engaged in the delivery in electronic form of comprehensive parts and service information to the automotive market. Its products transform complex technical data, like parts catalogs and service manuals, into easily accessed electronic information. For the world's automotive manufacturers and their dealer networks, ProQuest also secures business-to-business information and retail performance management services. ProQuest Company was recently named one of the nation's 200 best small companies by Forbes magazine, and one of the 100 fastest growing technology companies in the United States by Business 2.0 magazine.
About Active Web Services
Active Web Services is a global company that specializes in the area of postproduction, post-sales warranty process management and service component operations. AWS applications reduce cycle times and create controls that can dramatically improve warranty cost recovery, detect fraudulent claims, and deliver comprehensive analytics. AWS's powerful solutions organize the complexity of warranty and claims management, spare parts processing, TREAD Reporting and aftermarket services into one efficient process.
Forward-Looking Statements
Some of the statements contained herein constitute forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our or our markets' actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and other factors you should specifically consider include, but are not limited to: increased debt level due to the acquisition of Voyager, changes in customer demands or industry standards, adverse economic conditions, loss of key personnel, litigation, decreased library and educational funding/budgets, the ability to successfully integrate the Voyager acquisition, the ability to successfully close and integrate other acquisitions, demand for ProQuest's products and services, success of ongoing product development, maintaining acceptable margins, ability to control costs, the impact of federal, state and local regulatory requirements on ProQuest's business, including K-12 and higher education, and automotive, the impact of competition and the uncertainty of economic conditions in general, the ability to successfully attract and retain customers, sell additional products to existing customers, and win new business due to changes in technology, the ability to maintain a broad customer base to avoid dependence on any one single customer, K-12 enrollment and demographic trends, the level of educational funding, the level of education technology investments, the company's ability to obtain OEM data access agreements, the company's ability to obtain financing, global economic conditions, financial market performance, and other risks listed under "Risk Factors" in our regular filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," "projects," "intends," "prospects," "priorities," or the negative of such terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions. Actual events or results may differ materially.
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