I Know Who Bought Think3

For a long time now I have been trying to find the answer to the question “Who Bought Think3?” Actually someone told me the answer a while ago but wasn’t ready to go on record. Today one of my readers pointed me to this page which states that Think3 Inc. had filed for Chapter 11 on 18th May at the US Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Texas. The page mentions that Think3 Inc. was acquired by ESW Capital LLC in September 2010 in a stock purchase transaction.

On 23rd November 2010 I wrote:

A Google search for ESW Capital led me to this public document at the US Securities and Exchange Commission which shows that Manager of ESW Capital LLC, Assistant Secretary of Versata Enterprises and President and CEO of Trilogy are one and the same person. Interestingly the “About Versata” section of the Think3 press releases starts with: “Founded in 1989, Trilogy established Trilogy Technology Group, a forerunner to Versata Enterprises, in 2004.” So it appears that ESW Capital, Versata Enterprises and Trilogy are all related to each other in some way.

So this means ESW Capital bought the dying Think3 in a stock purchase and Versata bought Think3’s IP supposedly for millions of Euros. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here. Without its IP Think3 Inc. obviously could not survive and has gone bankrupt. Most of its employees were laid off long ago. Meanwhile Versata has taken the IP and is asking Think3 customers to pay for support.

I doubt Think3’s creditors got to see any of those millions because on 14th March 2011 they initiated insolvency proceedings against Think3 Inc. and its Italian subsidiary in Bologna, Italy. The judge figured out what was going on and appointed a trustee who seized control of the assets of Think3 Inc. and its Italian subsidiary.

One of the assets was the Think3 web site www.think3.com which is now controlled by the court appointed trustee. Versata made a copy of the web site and started hosting it at think3.versata.com and then took it down after realizing that it was doing something wrong. That was weeks ago. For all the development resources that it boasts of having, Versata has still not been able to cook up a decent looking web site for Think3. That says a lot to me.