IBM Completes DataMirror Acquisition

Published: September 11, 2007

by Alex Woodie

IBM completed its $161 million acquisition of i5/OS high availability software provider DataMirror last week. The IT giant also announced that DataMirror will be integrated into its Information Management software business, which includes the DB2 database and related products.

IBM announced its intention to buy DataMirror in mid July, just after DataMirror's competitor, Vision Solutions, shocked the industry by acquiring Lakeview Technologies, also a big player in the high availability market.

While DataMirror's reputation as a major player in the i5/OS high availability market had waned over the years as a company named iTera (since acquired by Vision Solutions) undercut the established companies with a less expensive product, it still had a solid customer base and strong demand for its cross-platform data replication software, called Transformation Server.

In fact, it was Transformation Server's "change data capture"--or a capability to efficiently detect changes to a database and then kick-off any number of activities based on that change, such as propagating that change to other systems or alerting the compliance officer of the change--that interested IBM in DataMirror, according to comments from company officials.

Over the coming months, DataMirror's employees, products, and assets will be incorporated into IBM's Information Management division, which is based in Toronto, Ontario, near DataMirror's headquarters in Markham.

All 220 of DataMirror employees will be kept as part of the acquisition, according to IBM. IBM also obtained about 2,200 new customers (although most of them probably were IBM customers to begin with), including FedEx Ground, First American Bank, Tiffany & Co., and Union Pacific Railroad.

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