IBM Acquires Data Discovery Software Vendor

Lately when you read the word acquisition and IBM in the same sentence it’s usually something to do with Big Blue’s failed acquisition of Sun and what it’s going to do now that it has a fist full of dollars and no one to spend it on.

Today, that changed. Kind of. While it might not be as big an acquisition as the Sun buyout would have been (or was for Oracle), IBM this week announced that it had purchased Exeros, a Santa Clara-based developer of data discovery software, which IBM hopes to integrate into its Information Management Software range.

According to Reuters, Exeros software automates the search for relationships between different databases, something the company says is a prerequisite for successful data quality or data integration projects. As an example, a credit card company or airline could use the software to consolidate customer loyalty program data from multiple databases with millions of records to create a single view of all customer information.

"All organizations today are faced with the daunting challenge of turning massive amounts of information into insights to guide their businesses, but many are held back by the complexity of corporate data sources," said Ambuj Goyal, general manager, IBM Information Management. "The combination of IBM and Exeros will enable companies to more intelligently manage their data across all formats and computing platforms, creating a smarter enterprise."

The details of the deal were not disclosed but we somehow doubt it was anywhere near the $7 billion the company nearly paid for Sun. Still, it’s good to see IBM getting back on the acquisition horse.