Epicor Software is one of those companies that, in hindsight, we probably haven’t covered often enough—we certainly don’t play favorites around here, but it’s not always clear why some firms make it onto the radar screen more often than others do.

Yesterday, though, Epicor publicly—and, to be honest, a little coldly—confirmed receipt of a $9.50-per-share offer from Elliott Associates, a roughly 20 percent premium over its previous closing price. So I’m reminded that there’s a massive, healthy, robust CRM industry out there, and we have to be vigilant in keeping tabs on it.

Irvine, Calif.–based Epicor has certainly paid its dues—founded in 1984, it’s been around longer than the CRM industry itself. (Click here to download the PDF of Epicor’s Fact Sheet from the company Web site.) According to the company’s press materials, Epicor was named one of Fortune magazine’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies in 2006, and serves over 20,000 customers in more than 140 countries—but it isn’t simply a CRM provider; in fact, Epicor boasts of its “integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and professional service automation (PSA) software solutions,” and there’s no immediate sign of what share of its customer base is utilizing CRM.

But where has it been hiding? Eight years ago, for example, our longtime friend Chris Selland (who was at Yankee Group at the time) was quoted in our magazine [before my time; I'm just accessing archives] as saying that Epicor was one of the best-kept secrets in the CRM industry: “If it can get its marketing act together, the company has a great integrated front/back office offering for the mid-market and could finally present a real challenge to Pivotal and Onyx.” [More after the break.]

Both of those others are long since gone, of course, lost to the acquisition/consolidation binge that overran the industry during the last decade, a nearly continuous wave that took E.piphany, PeopleSoft, Vantive, Siebel Systems, Salesnet, and dozens of others off the market. (And, no, contrary to popular belief, not everything got snapped up by Oracle.)

But not Epicor — Epicor stood its ground.

[I actually have no idea if Epicor was ever the subject of takeover rumors; this may be a case of steadfast independence -- or it may be that no one ever asked Epicor to dance in the first place.]

Its revenues appear to have been headed up consistently for the last several years — but, in what may or may not have been a coincidence, the same day the company acknowledged the offer from Elliott, it also lowered its revenue guidance for the year.

Another coincidence — the same day we hear about the buyout offer, I see a release from Research and Markets about a CRM study – a marketwide overview in which the firm mentions only eight CRM vendors….

…and Epicor is one of the eight. (The others? Infor, Maximizer, Microsoft, NetSuite, Oracle, Sage, SAP.)

At first, I was feeling rather detached from this whole turn of events, but then, in my poking around, I saw this ad on the company’s site:

The ad takes you to this page: http://snurl.com/EpicorKeyERP — and I honestly can’t tell if the page is a brilliant piece of self-aware self-deprecation, or a blithely ignorant example of corporate-speak. (The musical itself is real. I think.)

Our commitment is clear.

Epicor is proud to sponsor Milhouse Public Broadcasting’s five-part series documenting the production of the boldly groundbreaking new Off-Broadway musical In the Key of ERP .

Both MPB and Epicor are committed to educating various communities about the challenges and triumph of the human spirit by documenting Andrea McIntyre’s commitment to accurately adapting Anne Magnuson’s commitment to implementing the right ERP solution. As proof of our commitment to innovation and education, Epicor is also committed to providing global software solutions and local business expertise to business industries around the world.

But now I’m wishing Epicor had battled its way into my bandwidth a little sooner.

Anyway, some of the other coverage is here:

• You can see the Google Finance page for Epicor’s Nasdaq-traded stock here: http://snurl.com/EpicorStock
• The free Hoover’s page: http://snurl.com/EpicorHoover — says that 2007 annual revenue was $429.8 million, and the 2007 headcount was 2,907 employees.
• The Bloomberg ticker page: http://snurl.com/40oys
• The Bloomberg coverage, which notes that the offer sent the stock price to its “steepest single-day climb since April 2004″ and that “Epicor shares lost 24 percent this year”: http://snurl.com/EpicorBloomberg
• The CNN post: http://snurl.com/EpicorCNN

The $9.50-per-share proposed bid represents a premium of 20.4 percent over Epicor’s closing price Tuesday, but is still well below the stock’s 52-week high of $14.04 reached last October. Based on Epicor’s roughly 59.6 million outstanding shares as of Aug. 1, the deal would be worth roughly $566 million.