IBM Buys DataMirror for $162M

Posted by James Rogers on July 16, 2007

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IBM has acquired replication specialist DataMirror for $162 million as the vendor adds flesh to the bones of its data warehousing and information on demand strategies. (See IBM to Acquire DataMirror.)

Under the terms of the all-cash deal, IBM will buy all of the Toronto-based firm's outstanding shares at a price of C$27.00 (US$25.8). DataMirror, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, is the latest in a string of IBM acquisitions in the on-demand space, which include data migration specialist Softek, DWL, and FileNet. (See IBM Acquires Softek, IBM Acquires DWL, and IBM Nets FileNet for $1.6B.)

DataMirror's software identifies changes that have been made to structured data and then sends this data to back-end databases and applications. This could be, for example, a retailer sending information from point-of-sales systems directly to a data warehouse, enabling low stock to be quickly replenished.

The vendor's flagship offering is Transformation Server, which it claims can support a variety of data stores, including Oracle, IBM's DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, as well as Windows-, Unix-, and Linux-based systems. Users that have deployed Transformation Server include Imperial Tobacco, Office Depot, Kawasaki Motors Europe, and Tiffany & Co, which is using the software to send changes in its DB2-based sales data to a data warehouse, where the information is used for financial planning.

Other vendors playing in this space include GoldenGate Software and Lakeview Technology, which recently bought fellow replication specialist Vision Solutions. (See Lakeview OEMs From NSI.) Michael Curry, director of IBM's information integration program, confirms that the vendor looked at other firms prior to acquiring DataMirror, but would not name names. "DataMirror offered the broadest coverage in terms of the heterogeneous databases they support," he adds.