Andrew WhiteInformatica announces today its acquisition of best of breed MDM vendor Siperian. Siperian primarily (historically) focused on MDM of party data (such as patient, customer etc), but more recently started to sell into other master data domains. The move is a great sign for the MDM market – it shows the growth we saw through 2009 (despite the recession) is attractive to vendors in related markets. Which vendors will get acquired next?
Category: MDM MDM of Customer Data Tags: MDM, MDM of Customer Data, Siperian
3 responses so far ↓
1 Oliver Halter February 3, 2010 at 10:32 am
Andrew,
I agree that this is great news for the MDM market. Who will be acquired next?
As the last standing independent MDM provider, Initiate Systems is the obvious answer. This merger will put pressure on them to either forge strong partnerships with data integration players or being acquired itself by someone such as IBM, who is rumored to be considering it. Data quality and match providers such as Trillium, Data Flux, and Pitney Bowes will face a harder time in the market as customers are becoming more unlikely to try to implement CDI solutions themselves using their toolset.
I talk more about what this merger means for the market at Diamond’s Information Advantage blog.
http://www.theinformationadvantage.com/acquisition/informatica-acquires-siperian-%E2%80%93-what-is-next-in-mdm/
I welcome your thoughts.
2 Andrew White February 3, 2010 at 11:01 am
Oliver, thanks for the post. I have to disagree with the “last standing independent MDM provider” comment targeted to Initiate.
Like Siperian, Initiate is (at its root) a CDI (or MDM of Customer Data) vendor; historically focused on message/transaction based integration and reconciliation of customer/party data. In my view Siperian developed, before Initiate, a credible “MDM” vision. And when I say “MDM” I mean to imply multi-domain, multi-use case, multi-implementation style, and multiple organiation support.
Initiate remains firmly rooted in its “party” orientation with a strong focus on healthcare too. They figure in our research and Magic Quadrant for MDM of Customer Data, but to not appear in user projects oriented around MDM of Product Data. So yes, Initiate is certainly a target, but there are plenty of other MDM vendors (customer/party, product/thing, and other domains too) out there.
I guess what is attractive depends on the acquirers vision. If a vendor acquires a PIM or CDI oriented solution product, and markets it as MDM, it runs the risk of over stretch…
3 Oliver Halter February 3, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Thank you for your reply. I certainly agree with your assessment that Initiate at this point is not a multi-domain MDM vendor but rather a registry style CDI solution. I do think that Siperian at heart is a CDI vendor as well. You can certainly use Siperian to model other domains but it will very quickly become somewhat of a custom job if you were to use them to model the more intricate relationships and rollups that you may need for example in the product domain.
On another note – interesting new development with Initiate today – I guess we both called the IBM deal right. I just read the press release and I find it very telling that the whole press release paints Initiate as a pure health care solution and fails to mention that it is really a general purpose CDI product. Seems like either IBM is confused about how to position this as compared to their DWL/Websphere Customer Center or the want to avoid the market realizing that they may shift strategy on their CDI vision.
I will now go on and craft an obituary for Initiate at http://www.theinformationadvantage.com