Sale of DWL to IBM
IBM to Acquire Data Integration Software Maker DWL
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – August 2, 2005 (Reuters) – IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday said it will buy privately held DWL Inc., a supplier of customer data integration software that allows companies to combine business operations or merge with other companies.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
DWL, with headquarters in Atlanta and Toronto, is a provider of database “middleware” that stitches together customer information housed in separate silos across a company, from sales and marketing databases to call centers to Web sites.
The DWL software gives companies and government agencies an integrated view into all the different relationships an organization has with each each of its customers. Founded in 1996, DWL was originally aimed at financial services clients.
DWL is now used by banking, insurance, finance, telecommunications, retail and manufacturing industries. It counts 25 of the Fortune 500 companies as customers, it said.
The software is in hot demand among customers seeking to merge companies using different systems, or to pull together a common view of data in order to meet mounting regulatory requirements, DWL CEO John Baumstark said in an interview.
“Some of our customers call it their M&A chassis,” Baumstark said of how DWL data integration software allows companies to inexpensively combine massive amounts of data that reside in different databases in order to merge operations.
Insurance company MetLife Inc. (MET.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is an established customer, while retailer Staples Inc. (SPLS.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has recently purchased DWL to help it pursue its strategy of rolling up other regional and national office supply retailers, DWL said.
DWL software manages what are known as “master data records” that link together all related client data. It is built to run on top of IBM central data integration platform, known as WebSphere.
For example, a bank may use DWL software to keep track of all the different bank accounts, credit cards, investments and other retail services a client may have with the bank, in order to improve customer service.
The deal by Armonk, New York-based International Business Machines Corp., the world’s biggest computer company, marks the 10th software acquisition it has made since 2001 to bolster its information management and content integration offerings.
DWL joins recent IBM acquisitions including Venetica, a maker of software that links up data residing in different content management repositories within an organization, Trigo, a supplier of data synchronization software that helps companies manage shipments using radio frequency technology, and now Ascential, another data integration software supplier.
“This software is a significant piece of the puzzle. DWL is making it easier for companies to get a unified view of their customers,” Janet Perna, IBM’s general manager of information management software, said in a phone interview.
The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions and is expected to close later in 2005.
