IBM Acquires Privately Held Analytics Firm

In the latest step to shore up its business intelligence capabilities, IBM said Friday that it acquired SRD, a privately held Las Vegas-based analytics firm that makes "identity resolution" software.

SRD's operations will be integrated into IBM's Information Management software group, which will make SRD's products available immediately. IBM withheld financial terms of the deal.

SRD's software is designed to assist customer relationship management, regulatory compliance, security against insider threats and similar functions. Used in tandem with IBM middleware, SRD technology can search multiple databases to build a composite view of an individual's identity, IBM said. A financial institution could, for instance, use the technology to draw obscure associations that identify a person bouncing checks at different banks under several presumed names.

SRD software can tap data sources from IBM rivals Oracle and Microsoft, in addition to IBM's database technology. The software is compatible with both the SQL and J2EE development platforms.

IBM's Information Management division has made at least seven acquisitions in recent years, including data management vendor Venetica and analytics firm Alphablox last summer.

IBM's analytics technologies include DB2 Data Warehouse Edition, DB2 Cube Views and DB2 Alphablox. The company also makes a handful of industry-specific business intelligence applications.