Datawatch Corporation, a provider of information optimization solutions, has agreed to acquire Panopticon Software AB, a privately held Swedish company specializing in the delivery of real-time visual data discovery solutions. The transaction is expected to be completed before the end of Datawatch’s fiscal year September 30.
Datawatch’s information optimization products and solutions allow organizations to deliver a variety of data into their big data and analytic applications, and enable them to integrate structured, unstructured, and semi-structured sources like reports, PDF files, and EDI streams into these applications to provide a complete perspective of the issues and opportunities that exist in their businesses.
“Our focus has been around taking unstructured and semi-structured sources and trying to make those available to our customer base. We have a very extensive portfolio of less than structured data sources that we can get to,” Ben Plummer, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Datawatch, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
The acquisition of Panopticon, he notes, adds additional capabilities for Datawatch that are important in the big data space. “First of all, Panopticon is visual discovery at high velocity,” he says. The addition of this data velocity to the variety Datawatch currently provides will allow customers to gain more value from their big data, says Plummer.
The other capability that Panopticon introduces is the ability to help customers visually analyze data more effectively. “With the addition of Panoptiaon to the Datawatch portfolio, we will be able to give customers a much clearer end-to-end solution where they won’t really have to leave our product stack to gain value out of it. These visualizations are quite sophisticated and can delivery very large amounts of information. As a result, as we unlock more sources of data with our traditional products, users will be able to get more value out of the ability to interrogate that data.”
Panopticon's customers span all vertical industries and include some of the largest multinational companies in the world, including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Novartis, Pfizer, Vodafone, Cable & Wireless, Shell and BAE.
Under terms of the definitive agreement - approved by the boards of directors of both companies - Datawatch will acquire all outstanding shares of Panopticon in an all-stock transaction. Based upon the closing price of Datawatch common stock as of June 14, 2013, the deal is valued at approximately $31.4 million.
For more information, visit www.panopticon.com and www.datawatch.com.