The quick rise of its share price is given as an example of the excess of the dot-com bubble. The IPO allowed webMethods in April 2000 to acquire Premier Software Technologies, Inc. and TransLink Software, Inc., and in August 2000 to acquire Active Software for an estimated $1.3 billion in stock shares. Active Software, a public company based in Santa Clara, California and founded in 1994, had acquired Alier Inc., TransLink Software Inc. and Premier Software Technologies Inc. In January, 2001, webMethods acquired IntelliFrame Corporation, which had been part of Computer Network Technology Corporation, for about $31 million. While revenues grew, the company posted continuing operating losses due to the early 2000s recession following the bursting of the dot-com bubble through 2002. Although its share price declined sharply from its peak, company executives, directors and investors still made large profits on their shares. In October, 2003, the company announced it acquired three smaller companies in the integration market, for a combined estimated value of $32 million. The Mind Electric developed a technology called Glue, and its founder Graham Glass became the webMethods chief technical officer. The Dante Group developed software for business activity monitoring (BAM). The former DataChannel assets from Netegrity were used in a portal. Deloitte estimated webMethods was the fourth fastest growing technology company in North America in 2003, on the Deloitte Fast 500. By October, 2004, after revenues declined and losses rose, Phillip Merrick was replaced as CEO by David Mitchell. In August, 2006, webMethods acquired Cerebra, a privately held company that developed metadata management software. In September, 2006, webMethods acquired Infravio (which developed a software registry) for $38 million. The company was an early developer and promoter of standards for web service technologies, having worked on XML-RPC, a precursor to SOAP, and developed Web Interface Definition Language, a precursor to the Web Services Description Language standard. As part of a larger trend of consolidation, Software AG (based in Darmstadt, Germany) bid to acquire webMethods in April 2007 for an estimated $546 million in cash. The offer price was more than 25% over the market price of its shares, and came one day after activist shareholders Augustus Oliver and Clifford Press disclosed a 6% stake and claimed the company was under-valued. Although speculation persisted that a competitor might make a higher bid, the deal closed in June, 2007. The brand webMethods was retained, effectively making webMethods its