IBM plans to buy business software maker Ascential Software

IBM to pay $1.1B for Ascential Software
Tue Mar 15, 8:01 AM ET
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY
"IBM (IBM) plans to buy business software maker Ascential Software (ASCL) for $1.1 billion in cash, the companies said Monday.

Westboro, Mass.-based Ascential makes software to link databases and other back-end business programs. That's important for businesses that want to understand and use the vast amounts of data they generate each day. "

Analysis
Last year's announcement of "Masala" -- a massive combination of ETI tools, data knowledge, and services -- put IBM on my radar screen as the company that really wants to solve the (never ending) problem of turning the petabytes of enterprise data into some intelligence and wisdom. The Ascential acquisition makes IBM the go-to supplier in this space, with a huge variety of products, many services, and excellent experience and expertise gained from customer assignments. The acquisition will help IBM build a multi-billion dollar complex data knowledge business.

Peter S. Kastner