During his Build keynote, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella today announced that the company has acquired Greek tech company Softomotive, a software robotic automation platform.
Nadella noted that Softomotive would become part of Microsoft’s Power Automate platform. “We’re bringing RPA — or robotic process automation to legacy apps and services with our acquisition of Softomotive,” Nadella said.
Softomotive currently serve roughly 9,000 customers around the world, making Microsofts acquisition the biggest acquisition of a Greek tech company to date.
Softomotive was founded in 2005 by Marios Stavropoulos and is today considered a pioneer in robotic process automation (RPA).
“One of our most distinguishing characteristics, and an indelible part of our DNA, is an unswerving commitment to usability,” writes Softomotive CEO and co-founder Marios Stavropoulos.
“We have always believed in the notion of citizen developers and, since less than two percent of the world population can write code, we believe the greatest potential for both process improvement and overall innovation comes from business end users.”
While the two companies did not disclose the financial details of the transaction, sources say the price Microsoft is paying to buy out the Greek-owned firm is more than 100 million euros.
In Power Automate, Microsoft will use Softomotive’s tools to enable a number of new capabilities, including Softomotives low-code desktop automation solution WinAutomation. Until now, Power Automate did not feature any desktop automation tools.
It’ll also build Softomotive’s connectors for applications from SAP, as well as legacy terminal screens and Java, into its desktop automation experience and enable parallel execution and multitasking for UI automation.
“We are extremely excited to pursue this vision as part of Microsoft,” Marios Stavropoulos adds.
