Supply-chain software pioneer i2 Technologies, whose market capitalization reached about $74 billion during the 2000 dot-com bubble, has agreed to a $346 million cash acquisition by JDA Software Group, the companies announced Monday.

Two major i2 shareholders, investment firm Amalgamated Gadget and hedge fund S.A.C. Capital Advisors, had been agitating for a sale and i2 executives had acknowledged exploring strategic options since November.

The deal price of $14.86 per share offers a slim 5 percent premium over the closing price on Friday. The per share price also is a far cry from i2’s peak intra-day market price of $2,793.75, according to Thomson Reuters.

Richard Williams, an analyst at independent research provider Cross Research, likened the deal to upstart search engine Cuil acquiring behemoth Google, whose recent market capitalization was $158.8 billion.

“This was a high flyer in its day,” he said of iTwo. “It made Google look tame.”

The deal calls for Scottsdale, Arizona-based JDA to pay $568 million and assume iTwo’s $222 million for a net price of $346 million.

James Friedman, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group, which makes a market in i2 stock, said i2 “arguably invented the category of supply-chain management” in which companies use software and service to automate inputs to and from the factory floor.

At the same time, he noted, some marquee clients of i2, notably Nike and Hershey, encountered daunting obstacles in getting the software to work properly. At the same time, giant business software companies like Oracle and SAP began rolling supply-chain functions into their software suites.

For JDA, whose core market is in retail point of sale, the deal offers an extension onto the factory floor.

Shares of Dallas-based i2 climbed $.10, or .7 percent, to $14.26 in Monday afternoon trading. JDA shares tacked on $.81, or 4.5 percent, to $18.72.

In 2006, JDA acquired another supply-chain software giant from the dot-com era, Manugistics. In a statement, JDA Chief Executive Hamish Brewer called the i2 deal “an incremental and logical step.”