10 years later: growing together, moving forward together
2016 was no ordinary year for us. When gds acquired Ovidius GmbH and its subsidiary EasyBrowse ten years ago, it was not just the addition of two companies – it also brought a different way of thinking about technical documentation.
Ovidius stood for deep XML expertise and an established authoring system. gds contributed established structures, market access and its own solutions.
The idea was simple: bring together what complements each other. The challenge was to create more than just an expanded portfolio.
Strategically, the direction was clear: the XML expertise of Ovidius was to be leveraged in a targeted way. In the years that followed, the XR authoring system developed into a core solution within the portfolio, ideally complementing docuglobe, the Word-based authoring system developed by gds.
At the same time, EasyBrowse opened up new perspectives: not just creating content, but making it available on mobile devices – a topic that was only just beginning to gain momentum at the time and is now reflected in today’s easybrowse content delivery portal.
On paper, this quickly forms a coherent picture. In practice, however, integration is often far more complex. Different processes, established structures and, not least, personal expectations all come together. This is where it becomes clear whether an acquisition truly works.
“Our goal was never simply to take over structures, but to combine strengths and develop something independent from them,” says Ulrich Pelster, Managing Director of gds GmbH.
The fact that this succeeded was not only due to strategy – but also to the people who made it happen.
One of them is Marketing Manager Anja McGuire. She moved from Ovidius to gds at an early stage and experienced the process first-hand: “For me, it’s a real example of a ‘friendly acquisition’ and of how positive such a process can be.”
The sales team also quickly recognised the potential of the combination. Anne Kudla, now Head of Sales at gds, was responsible for selling EasyBrowse at the time: “Suddenly, we had the opportunity to advise customers in a completely different way – not just selectively, but across the entire information process. That fundamentally changed both our conversations and our expectations.”
Initially, Ovidius remained an independent company, contributing its strengths and continuing to develop solutions together with gds. In 2019, the logical decision followed to consolidate all activities under the gds umbrella brand. This step was less about structure and more about clarity:
One shared portfolio. One shared market presence. One shared direction.
Looking back, it becomes clear that the acquisition did more than expand the product portfolio. It laid the foundation for how gds thinks about technical documentation today – connected, digital and focused on the entire information lifecycle.
