IBM to Buy StoredIQ for Big Data Portfolio

IBM announced an agreement to acquire software maker StoredIQ to add to Big Blue's beefy big data analytics stable.

As a result, business leaders can access and analyze big data to gain insights for better decision-making. Legal teams can mitigate risk by meeting e-discovery obligations more effectively. Or they can analyze big data in place, estimate review costs and make strategic "settle versus argue" decisions far earlier in the process. Also, IT departments can dispose of unnecessary data and align information cost to value to take out excess costs.

"Together, IBM and StoredIQ can empower organizations to more efficiently use and govern their unstructured data to increase its value and eliminate unnecessary cost and risk," Phil Myers, CEO of StoredIQ, said in a statement. "IBM and StoredIQ are longstanding partners with existing integration between IBM's Information Lifecycle Governance suite and StoredIQ's active data management software."

StoredIQ software provides scalable analysis and governance of disparate and distributed email as well as file shares and collaboration sites, IBM said. This includes the ability to discover, analyze, monitor, retain, collect, de-duplicate and dispose of data. In addition, StoredIQ can rapidly analyze high volumes of unstructured data and automatically dispose of files and emails in compliance with regulatory requirements.

IBM's portfolio includes solutions that enable organizations to capture, manage and share content, no matter where it exists; assess and derive insight from content to improve outcomes; and provide lifecycle governance for content from capture through retirement.

Last month, Gartner named IBM the overall market share and total content revenue leader in its "2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management." According to Gartner's market-share analysis, IBM is the leading software vendor with 19 percent market share, outgrowing the market and extending its lead over that of its closest competitor. With an increasing focus on high-value solutions, Gartner reported IBM is leveraging its position as an infrastructure vendor with broad software and hardware stacks, a deep partner channel and global footprint.

IBM intends to incorporate StoredIQ into its Software Group and its Information Lifecycle Governance business. Building on prior acquisitions of PSS Systems in 2010 and Vivisimo in 2012, IBM adds to its strength in rapid discovery, effective governance and timely disposal of data. The acquisition of StoredIQ is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.