IBM To Buy Data Management Vendor Venetica

IBM continued its data management-related acquisition streak Thursday by announcing plans to buy Venetica, a maker of content integration software.

Venetica, based in Charlotte, N.C., makes software that allows realtime access to unstructured data. Customers include Wachovia Bank and Allstate Insurance. Financial terms were not disclosed.

This is IBM Software's 18th acquisition in the last three years and the sixth buy for the Data Management Group, IBM said. IBM purchased the database assets of rival Informix in April 2001 and has since gobbled up Tarian, Green Pasture Software, CrossAccess and Alphablox.

Janet Perna, general manager of IBM Software's Data Management Group, has driven many of these deals.

IBM plans to integrate Venetica's operations into its information integration group. Venetica products will be available from both IBM and its Business Partners.

Content management experts estimate that more than 80 percent of a given company's information resides outside structured relational databases from IBM, Oracle or Microsoft. That means crucial information often sits in Word or WordPerfect documents or PowerPoint presentations, which are difficult to index and find. All of the database giants are now rushing to extend their products to tap into those repositories and manage that data.