Long sought after by Private Equity firms, other insurers, and the occasional investment banker looking for a transaction, privately held ISCS has chosen to join Guidewire (NYSE:GWRE). ISCS adds its SurePower Innovation end-to-end suite to Guidewire’s existing InsuranceSuite end-to-end suite. This is a decided change of acquisition strategy for Guidewire. Up to now, all its acquisitions have fit into—or added a single new element—to InsuranceSuite. Why? Well, if you are a publicly held company growth is good.

ISCS immediately brings more revenue and more importantly brings good market momentum with a solid sales pipeline. ISCS’ focus on small and midsize insurers brings a few other intriguing possibilities. One is that Guidewire and its SI alliance partners will now aim at the large and very large insurer market, leaving the small and midsize market to ISCS. A second is that ISCS will become a vehicle for small insurer growth outside of the US. The third is that ISCS' more extensive cloud experience, especially with AWS, will step up Guidewire's movement to the cloud. For now Guidewire shareholders have a heckuva gift under their Christmas trees.