In March of this year, Extensity was acquired by Geac, and became part of the Geac Enterprise Solutions division. Geac is a global enterprise software company for business performance management, providing customers worldwide with core financial and operational solutions and services to improve their business performance in real time. Geac is comprised of 2,500 professionals throughout 56 locations worldwide with the vision to turn their customer’s ordinary business processes into extraordinary advantage through software solutions. Prior to the acquisition, Extensity had 270 employees, the majority of whom were technical professionals in different functional areas (i.e. engineering, marketing, consulting, customer support and IT).

Bob Spinner, former Extensity CEO, always maintained that employees should take pride in the company’s position as both a leader in its technical space and in the community in which they are located. “Employees should be proud of saying what company they’re from and know that we’re making a difference on may levels,” he said. It was his decision to award scholarships to schools in the East Bay where Extensity was founded in 1996 and is still currently located.

Geac has already benefited from the great feeling that results from helping people who can put our resources to use. This past May, Geac awarded two scholarships to students attending Diablo Valley College – Edwin “Alberto” Fonseca and Vlad Kaplun. Thus, Diablo Valley College (DVC), located in Pleasant Hill, California, was selected to work with the Foundation to offer the scholarships to students. At DVC, Geac and the Foundation found a tremendous advocate in Cynthia Heilesen, an officer with the school’s scholarship office. Geac is thrilled to work with such a remarkable Foundation dedicated to helping people get a good start into a successful career.

Don Smith, senior vice president, ASP & Hosting Operations, Geac Enterprise Solutions, stated, “Geac is extremely impressed with the accomplishments of their two Extensity scholarship recipients. We are proud to be a part of the important work the Open Door Education Foundation is doing to improve and grow our industry.

“As we look toward the future of computer technology, and the threatening workforce shortage, we have not had problems finding talented engineers, either entry-level or experienced. We expect to be able to find people with the skills, regardless of their nationality, to work on exciting technology, especially during this economic downturn where there are so many eager candidates to work on new technology in a stable company. Geac does not use a person’s nationality to make hiring decisions. Instead, we focus on each person’s talents and experience to determine if there is a match for us. We do feel the Open Door Education Foundation and similar programs that help get motivated students into subjects that will prepare them for the high tech work is essential because this industry has suffered from a huge shake-up which has had the effect of scaring many talented people away from it.

“In terms of philanthropic goals for the future, now that Extensity is part of a larger company spread out over many locations worldwide, we will be unable to continue contributing in the same manner as we did with our Named Scholarship. Our new company’s policies are set up to be non-location specific, so we will have to investigate this further with Open Door and other charitable organizations we support.”