IBM and Netezza Corporation have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Netezza, a publicly held company based in Marlborough, Mass., in a cash transaction at a price of $27 per share or at a net price of approximately $1.7 billion, after adjusting for cash. The purchase of Netezza, a provider of high-performance analytics in a data warehousing appliance, will expand IBM's business analytics initiatives to help clients gain faster insights into their business information, with increased performance at a lower cost. The acquisition is subject to Netezza shareholder approval, regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Business analytics is one of the fastest growing segments in the IT industry, observed Arvind Krishna, general manager of IBM's Software Group's Information Management business, during an IBM press teleconference to discuss the significance of the planned acquisition. The recent pace of data which being gathered in ever-increasing quantity by IBM's clients accelerates the opportunity around information and analytics and it is a top priority for organizations around the globe, he added.
Speaking after Krishna, Jim Baum, president and CEO of Netezza, said, "Our product has been significantly differentiated from other approaches and other similar products in the market based really on two key elements, one is the element of price/performance and the ability to bring these capabilities to market at a lower total cost of ownership, and the other is one of simplicity. These systems that typically underlie advanced analytics solutions can tend to be very complex when implemented using more traditional methods and so we have taken the complexity out of that by inextricably integrating computing capability and networking and storage and database software to build a purpose-built appliance that is used specifically to solve the problems associated with business analytics."
Bringing this simplicity, ease of deployment, and speed of Netezza to IBM will help IBM accelerate its initiatives "to bring analytics to the masses," Baum continued. "It is a common objective of both IBM's and Netezza's and something we have both been very focused on. And so, bringing this technology into the portfolio of IBM technologies will allow this to accelerate that initiative."
Following the close of the acquisition, IBM intends to integrate Netezza within IBM's Information Management software portfolio. For Information on Demand and IBM Information Management, go here. For more information about Netezza, go here.