The wave of acquisition is now moving from integrated solution providers such as SAP or Oracle to pure-player companies and a recent example of that is Sterling Commerce.

Sterling Commerce has originally been an EDI service provider. After 2000, the company acquired a number of point solution vendors, such as yantra (order management software), Nistevo (transportation management systems) and Comergent (catalog management).

Today, while EDI still represents 45% of Sterling's business, the company is looking for more and now is focused on what it calls multi-enterprise integration solutions. Its latest offering, for instance, is an integrated selling and fulfillment solution designed to offer an end-to-end view of marketing, lead management, selling, orders, inventory, delivery and supply, as well as returns, repairs and settlement.

According to Industry Week, the success of Sterling's new offering rests on the answer to one question: "Is the value created by the sum of its parts greater than that of its individual components?"

Do you think Sterling Commerce can cross this chasm?