IBM said September 20 that it will acquire Netezza, an analytics provider, for $1.7 billion to help its clients gain faster insights into their business information.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, pending approval from Netezza shareholders and regulators, as well as other closing conditions.
IBM has made 23 analytics-related business acquisitions in the past four years, at a cost of about $12 billion.
“The world is becoming smarter because there is much more information available than ever before, and computing power is much more cost effective than ever before,” says Bernie Spang, director of product strategy at IBM. “So we are working with clients to tap into that and uncover insights into where revenue and savings are, and tell them where there are risks and where they can and cannot live without analytic information.”
Spang added that IBM wants to make analytics information not only simpler and more customized, but also available to employees across an organization, not just those at a senior level.
“This acquisition is part of the answer of how we can help accelerate at even greater speed and simplicity more applications and analytics across businesses of all sizes around the world,” said Sprang.
IBM has made a number of marketing-related acquisitions in recent months. This summer, the company said it will buy marketing software provider Unica for $480 million and web analytics company Coremetrics for an undisclosed amount.
