IBM in a quick move announced they have filled a gap in their information agenda by acquiring the technology assets of Exeros and bringing on staff of Exeros as part of IBM Information Management software group led by Ambuj Goyal. Exeros who had made some significant steps forward in their technology to dynamically identify relationships among data to help in the automation of establishing relationships across data. The need for this technology approach varied from helping accelerate the need to establish knowledge in where to apply data technologies for integration and migration to the identification of where data needs to be aligned for master data management, or determining where data governance processes need to be improved by understand the sources of data.

This move falls in line with the priority of business and IT investing into information management as a key priority for 2009. The data discovery technology from Exeros will be a key enabler for IBM Information Management and their InfoSphere software portfolio that manages a broad set of data integration, data quality, data warehousing, master data management and other data related needs for IT and business. The need to better understand and discover data has been clear as architecture and data management professionals look at simpler methods to improve their data processing with enterprise applications, data warehousing and business intelligence areas. Data discovery plays a key role for LOB areas like customer information management, product information management and even financial information management areas across industries that are investing into business process and true information technology improvements.

Competitively and related was Oracle recent announcement on their OEM of Silver Creek Systems where they plan to accelerate their product information management efforts. Now will Oracle look to fully acquire technology assets in this segment now, and where will other providers like Informatica do to response since they had partnered with Exeros and others like Composite Software. Of course with only Netrics, Sypherlink and XSB as other dedicated data discovery technology providers in the market with slightly different technological approaches. Of course we have seen how Composite Software has been used to help meet some of these IT needs with their ability to dynamically access data from across systems and provide a virtual data service for discovery and development of applications to information access including business intelligence. Composite Software announced today their advancement to help information architects and analysts the ability to streamline the information flow across enterprises.

This acquisition of Exeros technology assets though small in size from a customer, product and people perspective, is a sizable event for IBM who had for many years not recognized the fundamental importance of this technology category. As IBM continues to advance their Information Agenda which needed a substantive intellectual step forward as pointed out in my recent IBM Gets Noisy on Information Agenda Again – Progress?. It is clear that the needs to have the highest a focused information management strategy is critical but who provides the most comprehensive toolset is key. The new horse race to fulfill on this is a horse race between IBM, Oracle and Informatica though not sure where providers like HP and Microsoft will play into the market in a more significant manner. IBM is clear that this technology will play a key role in their software strategy and their newly announced business analytics optimization (BAO) business unit in IBM Global Services.

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Regards,

Mark Smith - CEO & EVP Research