Master Data Movement
By Douglas Wood, Infoglide Senior Vice President
I read with interest yesterday’s article at SeekingAlpha which discusses rumors swirling around the MDM software industry. According to the article, sources suggest that two deals are very near completion. The first of those rumored transactions would see Informatica picking up MDM provider Siperian. On the heels of their acquisitions of Identity Systems and AddressDoctor, the Siperian purchase could not be totally unexpected – but would most certainly create some ripple effect worth watching.
The first thing that springs to mind is what Oracle would intend to do with Informatica. A long-time business partner of Oracle, strengthened through the 2008 purchase of Identity Systems, Informatica could now only be classified as a true and direct competitor to Oracle. Can Oracle continue to OEM technology (SSA Name3, for example) from what would instantly become a major competitor? Sleeping with the enemy is one thing… leaving money on the nightstand afterwards is another thing altogether! It will be interesting to see what happens here, to say the least.
The other rumored acquisition is that of Initiate Systems by IBM. Thought to be roughly twice the size of Siperian, Initiate would tend to give further credibility to IBM’s vast – and growing – presence in the Health Care industry, where Initiate has become a recognized industry leader. What muddies the waters, however, would be the question of what IBM would intend to do with Initiate’s entity resolution engine. In a nutshell, Initiate has been one of two software vendors doing an excellent job of providing technologies applicable for both MDM and fraud/risk related implementations. Infoglide Software Corporation is the other.
Marketed in an eerily similar fashion to Infoglide’s earlier-released Identity Resolution Engine (is imitation the most sincere form of flattery?), Initiate’s offering in this identity resolution space could become short-lived given IBM’s large and ongoing investment in InfoSphere Identity Insight Solutions (formerly Entity Analytics Solutions). How soon that would happen, of course, is anyone’s guess.
One thing is certain, however: the need for technology that is applicable to both MDM initiatives and that exposes risk and fraud through matching and linking of entities is very real and growing. How the other major industry players react – should either or both of these rumors become reality – will define the industry for years to come.
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