IBM To Acquired StoredIQ

IBM today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire StoredIQ Inc., a privately held company based in Austin, Texas.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

StoredIQ will advance IBM’s efforts to help clients derive value from big data and respond more efficiently to litigation and regulations, dispose of information that has outlived its purpose and lower data storage costs.

With this agreement, IBM adds to its prior investments in Information Lifecycle Governance. The addition of StoredIQ capabilities enables clients to find and use unstructured information of value, respond more efficiently to litigation and regulatory events and lower information costs as data ages.

IBM’s Information Lifecycle Governance suite improves information economics by helping companies lower the total cost of managing data while increasing the value derived from it by:

• Eliminating unnecessary cost and risk with defensible disposal of unneeded data
• Enabling businesses to realize the full value of information as it ages
• Aligning cost to the value of information
• Reducing information risk by automating privacy, e-discovery, and regulatory policies

Adding StoredIQ to IBM’s Information Lifecycle Governance suite gives organizations more effective governance of the vast majority of data, including efficient electronic discovery and its timely disposal, to eliminate unnecessary data that consumes infrastructure and elevates risk.

As a result, business leaders can access and analyze big data to gain insights for better decision-making. Legal teams can mitigate risk by meeting e-discovery obligations more effectively. Also, IT departments can dispose of unnecessary data and align information cost to value to take out excess costs.

What Does StoredIQ Software Do? 

StoredIQ software provides scalable analysis and governance of disparate and distributed email as well as file shares and collaboration sites. This includes the ability to discover, analyze, monitor, retain, collect, de-duplicate and dispose of data.

In addition, StoredIQ can rapidly analyze high volumes of unstructured data and automatically dispose of files and emails in compliance with regulatory requirements.

StoredIQ brings powerful, innovative capabilities to govern data in place to drive value up and cost out.

“CIOs and general counsels are overwhelmed by volumes of information that exceed their budgets and their capacity to meet legal requirements,” said Deidre Paknad, vice president of Information Lifecycle Governance at IBM. “With this acquisition, IBM adds to its unique strengths as a provider able to help CIOs and attorneys rapidly drive out excess information cost and mitigate legal risks while improving information utility for the business.”

Named a 2012 Cool Vendor by Gartner, StoredIQ has more than 120 customers worldwide, including global leaders in financial services, healthcare, government, manufacturing and other sectors. Other systems require months to index data and years to configure, install and address information governance. StoredIQ can be up and running in just hours, immediately helping clients drive out cost and risk.

IBM intends to incorporate StoredIQ into its Software Group and its Information Lifecycle Governance business.

Building on prior acquisitions of PSS Systems in 2010 and Vivisimo in 2012, IBM adds to its strength in rapid discovery, effective governance and timely disposal of data.  The acquisition of StoredIQ is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.

Go here for more information on IBM’s Information Lifecycle Governance suite, and here for more information on IBM’s big data platform.

Information On Demand 2011: Let The Interviews Begin!

Scott and I are well into our Sunday afternoon interviews, and we’ve had a couple of great sessions already discussing key themes emerging both at the conference and in the broader information management landscape.

We discussed the opportunities and challenges brought about by predictive analytics, and the unique requirements for establishing an effective information governance regime, and how to sell it into your organization.

Keep an eye for those interviews on our LiveStream channel, which you can reach at www.livestream.com/ibmsoftware

Also, remember you can follow all the action via the social media, including via the Twitter hashtags #iod11, #iod2011, and #iodgc2011, and as well on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics.

If you want to drink from the information firehouse and see the full social media stream, visit ibm.co/iodsocial.

Happy Tuesday

Hey there, happy Tuesday.

I’ve back and mostly recuperated from Information on Demand 2010.

More on that in a moment.

First, congrats to the San Francisco Giants for their World Series win.  It was a bittersweet first trip to the Big Show for my Texas Rangers, but I loved every minute of it in spite of the outcome.

And I love the City of San Francisco and its surrounding environs, have many friends who live in the area, and hope they are wallowing in their well deserved victory.

Meanwhile. on the subject of speaking of recent victories, Canalys is reporting that Apple now leads the U.S. smart phone market with 26% share.

Boy, do I feel like I went to bat for the right team on this one.  I struggled with my iPhone/Droid decision (moving away from RIM), and I opted for the iPhone (even though I still maintain the Droid market will end up being much, much larger in terms of the mobile application market opportunity).

But, there’s something to be said for the proprietary, quality-control approach Apple’s taking, and apparently millions of Apple iPhone users agree. (By the way, I’ve had NO buyer’s remorse for the iPhone 4 whatsoever.  In fact, I wonder why it took me so long to switch to the iPhone!)

Now, back to IOD 2010.

First, if you missed all the action, that’s okay, we captured a number of key sessions that you can attend remotely in Information on Demand Virtual 2010. There will be two sessions: One on November 17, the other on December 15.  Check out the previous link for more details (but know you’ll be able to see keynotes from a variety of speakers, including Dr. Atul Gawande and the Freakonomics gang).

You can also check out a number of the video interviews Scott Laningham and I conducted with key IBM execs, Business Partners, customers and subject matter experts on our Livestream channel.

And of course, you can read through back some the prior Turbo posts for key session recaps.

IBM Acquires PSS Systems

IBM today announced that it has acquired PSS Systems, a privately held company based in Mountain View, Calif.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PSS Systems’ software helps organizations analyze, automate and implement information governance policies across massive amounts of electronic business information and dispose of that information in an automated way.  These capabilities are critical elements to remaining responsive to legal obligations while reducing data storage costs.

As information continues to grow at exponential rates, companies across a wide range of industries are looking for ways to reduce the costs of collecting, processing, reviewing and storing information by setting information disposal policies that can meet legal requirements.

To improve the management of data and these increasing legal obligations, Chief Legal Officers and CIOs are investing in software to automate and implement routine enforcement of information governance and retention policies.  Needlessly retaining information increases business risk, impedes the ability to respond to legal requests, and puts costs restraints on organizations in every industry.

Finding Information Faster

A recent study by the Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council found that fewer than 25 percent of organizations were able to dispose of data properly because they lacked rigorous legal hold management practices and effective record retention programs. The report also estimates that that costs associated with legal electronic discovery average more than $3 million per case and about 70 percent of information is often needlessly retained.

By combining PSS Systems’ software with IBM’s complementary Information Lifecycle Governance software, IBM is uniquely positioned to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of offerings that address client’s needs to manage, automate, and apply policies to address the interlocking needs of the CLO, CIO and lines-of-business constituents.

PSS Systems has an established base of clients, including seven of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies, across a wide variety of industries worldwide including financial services, pharmaceutical, petro-chemical, healthcare and energy. Companies such as Abbott, BASF, BP, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, First Data, GE, Pfizer and Williams use PSS Systems software solutions.

PSS Systems founded the Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council (CGOC), a corporate practitioner’s forum with more than 800 members.  They also developed the industry leading Information Governance Process Maturity Model which includes process assessment and business case methodologies, best practice tools and delivery models for legal and IT professional.

With this acquisition, IBM expands its suite of Information Lifecycle Governance solutions, which include content assessment, collection, archiving, imaging, advanced classification, records management, e-discovery search and analytics as well as IBM’s storage management and Smart Archive strategy.

IBM intends to integrate PSS Systems within the IBM ‘s Software Group.  You can learn more here.