IBM Completes One Big Data Analytic Acquisition, Announces Another
February 12, 2013 Alex Woodie
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IBM last week completed its acquisition of StoredIQ, which helps companies alleviate legal risk by analyzing vast data stores and deleting old information, or “data debris.” It also announced the acquisition of Star Analytics, which develops tools to help companies integrate their reporting and business intelligence tools, wherever they may be. IBM says its acquisition of StoredIQ, which was first announced in December, will bolster its other acquisitions, including PSS Systems and Vivisimo, and provide new capabilities to existing IBM solutions in the areas of archiving, e-discovery, data governance, and records and retention management. The software from Austin, Texas-based StoredIQ is designed to analyze huge amounts of unstructured data–from distributed email, files shares, desktops, and collaboration applications–in short amounts of time. The software will automatically collect data that needs to be protected, per regulatory or legal requirements, while disposing of unnecessary data that no longer needs to be stored. “Most CIOs and GCs [general counsels] know they’re saving too much data, which drives up IT costs and increases legal risk,” states Deidre Paknad, vice president of industry solutions, who is leading the integration of StoredIQ at IBM. “With IBM and StoredIQ, organizations can maximize the value of big data and more effectively meet growing legal and privacy duties while disposing of data debris to control both cost and risk.” The pending acquisition of Star Analytics, meanwhile, should give IBM a boost in the BI integration department. Star Analytics sells two products, including Star Command Center (SCC), which automates and controls processes across heterogeneous computing applications and environments, and Star Integration Server (SIS), which provides a way to pull the results out of Oracle‘s Hyperion ESSBASE OLAP tool and share them with other reporting tools. As big data and analytic tool use increases in the future, IBM is betting that the tools used to connect everything will need to get smarter, and that’s what the Star Analytics acquisition is all about. “IBM sees an enormous opportunity for our clients to apply Star Analytics to the information they have stored in their financial applications, and to then easily access it within their IBM performance management and business intelligence solutions,” said Leslie Rechan, general manager of IBM business analytics. The acquisition of the Redwood City, California, company is expected to close this quarter. Terms were not announced in either acquisition.
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