Microsoft Buys Stratature For Master Data Management
Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Microsoft and Alpharetta, Ga.-based Stratature already were partners, but the Redmond, Wash., software giant said the acquisition will accelerate its delivery of MDM technology via its SQL Server, Business Intelligence and SharePoint groups.
In a FAQ posted to Stratature's Web site, the company said Microsoft would withdraw its EDm products from the market but continue to support and maintain existing Stratature customers.
Essentially, MDM technology seeks to ensure that a business has one referenceable "point of truth" or master data set that all of its applications and systems can tap into. But with distributed systems, different versions of data can end up in different systems.
Upen Varanasi, founder and vice president of Riversand, a Houston-based Microsoft partner specializing in product information management, a field closely related to MDM, said the acquisition makes sense .
"Microsoft has put together pieces of master data management through partnerships. Now it's building an ecosystem with acquisitions in some areas and partnerships in others," he said.
Varanasi expects Microsoft to link the Stratature technology closely with SharePoint and use SQL Server as the back-end database and repository.
IBM has made several MDM-related acquisitions in recent years, including Ascential, System Research and Design, Language Analysis Systems and DWL.
Two months ago, Oracle teamed with long-time partner Acxiom Systems to offer prepackaged MDM software.
What some industry observers see as a recent MDM push shows that vendors expect more businesses to try to make the most out of the databases and data they already have in-house. But a big problem for these companies and their VAR partners is ensuring that the data is clean, accurate and feeds into good analysis and business-intelligence systems
Forrester Research estimated the MDM market at $1.1 billion in 2006 and projects sales to grow to $6.7 billion by 2010.
This report was updated Friday morning with links to Stratature's Web site.