Informatica + Siperian Acquisition = Premier MDM Platform

As expected, Informatica has announced that it has acquired Siperian (disclosure, my former company) for $130M (see full press release below). If predictions are correct, this will be a relative “bargain” when compared with the upcoming IBM and Initiate Systems tie up which is expected to be 4 to 5x Initiate’s $90M annual revenues. If this indeed turns out to be true, Initiate will have pulled off an amazing deal, either that or someone at IBM is overpaying big time for market penetration. Fundamentally, Siperian and Initiate’s capabilities in MDM are very similar. Initiate definitely has the EMPI (Employee Master Patient Index) expertise, health care customer base, and has made some health care technology related acquisitions over the last few months, but holy premium batman, that would be a lot of money relative to what Informatica has paid for Siperian. If I needed a personal shopper for startups, I’d be enlisting the services of Informatica corporate development rather than IBM for sure. There’s a reason why Informatica’s CFO Earl Fry wins awards!

For Informatica, this is a great move, completing their MDM puzzle by supplementing their previous acquisitions of AddressDoctor, Identity Systems and others. Obviously I have personal bias, but I believe that this catapults the Informatica/Siperian MDM platform to the top of the MDM evaluation stack. The best MDM technology is now backed by a major player in the data management space and it is a one-stop shop for corporations seeking an MDM solution. It also reverses Informatica’s positioning back in July 2008 when they stated then that they were not going to “get into the MDM business”. But times have definitely changed and the spate of acquisitions in the MDM ecosystem, coupled with Initiate’s pending move to the alter with IBM has lead up to this. Kudos to Rob Karel of Forrester by the way who predicted this back in 2008 and later also revoiced an opinion that Oracle’s acquisition of Silver Creek would basically mean that Informatica would no longer have any qualms about getting into the MDM space through an acquisition. See his latest analysis on the Informatica/Siperian tie up here.

My best wishes go out to my former colleagues at Siperian. Congrats to Informatica management, you not only have acquired some great technology, but also a great group of people.

Finally, a personal word of thanks to Ken Hoang, CTO and Founder of Siperian for “the incredible ride” which we all at Siperian embarked on. His dedication, personal, professional was an inspiration to us all and I wish him and his family the very best.

BTW, Informatica also announced their 4th qtr results today which were fantastic. Quite a day for the team at One Cardinal Way.

VIDEO: View Ivan Chong, Informatica’s SVP Data Quality video about the Siperian Acquisition

Informatica Acquires Siperian
Advances Technology Leadership and Further Expands Addressable Market Opportunity

Press Release Source: Informatica Corporation On Thursday January 28, 2010, 4:15 pm

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Jan. 28, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Informatica Corporation (Nasdaq:INFANews), the world’s number one independent leader in data integration software, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Siperian, a leader in the Master Data Management (MDM) infrastructure technology category. MDM provides a holistic, single view of foundational business entities, commonly referred to as master data such as customers, employees, citizens, locations and products. Successful MDM projects facilitate better operational efficiency, higher customer loyalty and successful compliance efforts. 

 Informatica will acquire Siperian, on a fully diluted basis, for approximately $130 million in cash.

 “Our acquisition of Siperian will expand Informatica’s addressable market with an additional high-growth, adjacent technology category, MDM infrastructure, and will further strengthen our key strategic partnerships,” said Sohaib Abbasi, chairman and CEO, Informatica. “Informatica Data Integration and Data Quality have a proven track record of enabling successful MDM projects. Together, we will advance Informatica as a leader in this exciting MDM Infrastructure category.”

For MDM projects, customers have a choice of infrastructure and application products ranging in approach from model-your-own to near turn-key packaged solutions. Siperian and Informatica offer leading products in the MDM Infrastructure category that complement and enable MDM Applications. According to an independent report, 49% of organizations were planning to implement or expand their use of MDM software in 2009 (“Trends 2009: Master Data Management”, Forrester Research, Inc., October 2009). Another leading analyst firm forecast 2010 software spend in the MDM Infrastructure market at $1 billion, half of the total MDM software market, growing at a rate of 20 percent.

Siperian is an award-winning visionary pioneer offering three well-differentiated and proven capabilities. Siperian delivers a multidomain MDM platform to optimize business decisions across multiple entities or considerations. With easy-to-configure capabilities, Siperian expedites time-to-results. And, with built-in ratings metrics for trustworthiness, business stakeholders have greater confidence in their master data.  

The new MDM Infrastructure category expands Informatica’s addressable market. The existing product integration and unified architecture, based on the common Informatica Identity Resolution technology, will facilitate cross-sell opportunities for Informatica Data Integration and Data Quality products. The combination of Siperian products and the comprehensive Informatica Platform will deliver even more differentiated value to customers such as use of Informatica B2B Data Exchange to share master data across the supply chain partner network.

“Siperian is a recognized leader and provides the only market-proven, multidomain MDM platform,” said Peter Caswell, CEO, Siperian. “In combination with Informatica, we are more strongly positioned to deliver a complete range of data integration and data management solutions to empower today’s data-driven enterprises.”

More than 60 customers worldwide successfully rely on Siperian including leaders in life sciences and financial services. These customers include: Pfizer, Shire, Bank of America, State Street Bank and Lexis Nexis.A study of 400 MDM projects conducted by the industry analyst firm Aberdeen Group, concluded that organizations relying on Siperian achieved more than 50 percent better business results, as measured by customer retention and cross-sell rates, compared to those relying on IBM.

Siperian was founded in April 2001, and has its headquarters in Foster City, Calif.

About Informatica

Informatica Corporation (Nasdaq:INFANews) is the world’s number one provider of data integration software. The Informatica Platform provides organizations with a comprehensive, unified, open and economical approach to lower IT costs and gain competitive advantage from their information assets. More than 3,900 enterprises worldwide rely on Informatica to access, integrate and trust their information assets held in the traditional enterprise and in the internet cloud. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the expected benefits of the transaction to customers, the expected benefits to Informatica’s addressable market and the expected benefits to Informatica’s technology leadership.  Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the results described in this press release.  The potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ include, among others, risks related to our ability to (1) successfully integrate Siperian, its products, technologies and employees into Informatica and achieve expected synergies, (2) compete successfully in this highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, (3) retain key employees and (4) other factors affecting the operation of the respective businesses, as well as those risks and uncertainties included under the caption “Risk Factors” in Informatica’s report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2009, which is on file with the SEC and is available on the company’s investor relations website at www.informatica.com.  All information provided in this release is as of January 28, 2010, and Informatica undertakes no duty to update this information.

 Informatica, Informatica Platform, Identity Resolution and Informatica B2B Data Transformation areregistered trademarks or trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.