IBM has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Coremetrics, a Web analytics software provider. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
IBM announced that it has signed a
definitive agreement to acquire Coremetrics, a Web analytics software provider.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquisition of Coremetrics will mark the third acquisition IBM
has made in its application middleware group since May of this year. Since then
IBM has acquired Cast Iron Systems, Sterling
Commerce and now Coremetrics. Coremetrics, a privately held company based in San
Mateo, Calif., will expand IBM's
business analytics capabilities by enabling organizations to use a cloud-based
delivery model to gain real-time insight into consumer interactions internally
and through social media networks to develop faster, more targeted marketing
campaigns.
In a press conference about the news, Craig Hayman, general manager of IBM
WebSphere, said Coremetrics will land in IBM's
WebSphere business unit under his leadership. He said the Coremetrics
technology will expand IBM's already
significant business analytics capability and bring in new Web analytics
capabilities that will appeal to a different set of customers as well as
existing IBM customers.
Joe Davis, CEO of Coremetrics, said he
welcomes the opportunity to join IBM and
leverage its global presence and broad penetration in the analytics space.
"We're looking forward to being able to take the great technology we built
and move it into IBM and grow it even faster
than we could before," he said. "We'll be growing this globally and
into verticals we haven't been able to reach before."
Hayman said organizations are increasingly looking for ways to optimize
their marketing processes and gain deeper insights into client demands in order
to drive brand loyalty by executing more personalized customer interactions.
Companies are faced with an increasingly complex set of digital outlets to
interact with customers, ranging from Websites and mobile applications to
e-mail and social media sites. Businesses must continuously focus on enhancing
the customer brand experience and respond quickly to marketplace changes to
differentiate themselves.
Moreover, Hayman said results from IBM's
2010 CEO Study showed that 88 percent of
CEOs will focus on getting closer to their customers in next five years, 82
percent of CEOs want to better understand customer needs and 85 percent of CEOs
require more visibility into their businesses.
These are things that Coremetrics' technology can help customers with,
Hayman said. "Companies are trying to get higher levels of brand
loyalty," and Coremetrics enables them to tap cloud-based analytics and
social media networks with direct links to marketing campaigns, he added.
Relevant business information is being generated every second on the Web,
Hayman said. Today, 70 percent of a consumer's first interaction with a product
or service takes place online. Through Coremetrics, IBM
is gaining the ability to help businesses rapidly gain intelligence into social
networks and online media sources through a cloud-based delivery model and
incorporate this insight into their business processes to create smarter, more
effective marketing campaigns.
Today, Coremetrics delivers Web analytics capabilities to more than 2,100
global brands across a wide range of industries, including retail, financial
services, media and publishing, travel and hospitality, and education. Customers
include Bank of America, Holiday Inn, PETCO, 1-800 Flowers, Office Depot, Victoria's
Secret, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Seton
Hall University.
Coremetrics' offerings enable more effective marketing campaigns that can
provide real-time intelligence on what consumers are saying about products and
services being offered to them, and allow clients to make fact-based, accurate
decisions on marketing expenditures. As a result, marketing teams can gain
deeper insight about their consumers and present personalized recommendations,
promotions and other sales incentives across a variety of channels where the
consumers interact with their brand. These channels span traditional outlets
such as storefronts and catalogs and newer outlets including all forms of e-commerce
and social media.
"With this acquisition, we are extending our capabilities to give
clients greater insight about customer behavior and sentiment about products
and services, and give true foresight into their future buying patterns,"
Hayman said in a statement. "Marketing departments can benefit from these
capabilities very quickly because we are delivering this in a
Software-as-a-Service model. The combination of IBM
and Coremetrics will maximize marketing expenditures and also make the buying experience
more convenient, personal and interactive for consumers."
Coremetrics' offerings are a new addition to IBM's
business analytics portfolio. By acquiring Coremetrics, IBM
will be able to deliver new business analytics solutions, with the Web analytics
capabilities clients need to help measure the effectiveness of their marketing
campaigns and understand the shopping habits, likes and dislikes of their
customers. In addition, Coremetrics software complements IBM's
existing software and services portfolio of offerings from WebSphere,
information management, and business analytics and optimization. Upon closing,
the company will become part of IBM's
application and integration middleware portfolio, which provides the backbone
of transaction processing on the Web and powers many of the world's leading
retail sites. Through Coremetrics, IBM is
gaining the ability to help businesses empower their marketing professionals to
automate and optimize their marketing processes to create the greatest possible
return on their marketing expenditures.
"Marketers increasingly need the ability to see across their
organizations and the agility to make split-second decisions based on real-time
data," Davis said in a
statement. "The combination of Coremetrics and IBM
will deliver deeper business insights to address the real challenges and
opportunities all companies face in an increasingly digital world."
Consistent with IBM's software strategy, IBM
will continue to support and enhance Coremetrics' technologies and clients while
allowing them to take advantage of the broader IBM
portfolio. Coremetrics' approximately 230 employees will be integrated
into IBM. The deal is expected to close in
the third quarter of 2010, subject to regulatory approvals and the satisfaction
of other customary closing conditions.
IBM's acquisition of Coremetrics extends
the company's analytics strategy, which includes a range of offerings available
through IBM's Business Analytics and
Optimization Consulting organization that includes a team of 5,000 consultants
and a network of analytics solution centers, and is backed by an overall
investment of more than $11 billion in acquisitions in the last five years.
The IBM Software Group has acquired more
than 55 companies since 2003.
Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.
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