Informatica Acquisition Boosts One-Stop Data Management

Information integration and data quality and cleansing initiatives go hand in hand, so why not bundle the required technologies and services? That's the approach Informatica is advancing with its June 2 acquisition of AddressDoctor, a German company that provides global address validation and enrichment services covering more than 200 countries and territories.

Offering a mix of software and online services, AddressDoctor helps customers correct addresses, check for changed addresses and enrich address information with geocoding. Customers include direct and online marketers, hospitality and tourism firms, and postal and delivery services. AddressDoctor is also partnered with prominent data integration and data quality vendors, including IBM, DataFlux, Experian QAS, Melissa Data and Siperian.

Despite Informatica's assurances that it "remains committed" to these partners, which either OEM or resell AddressDoctor technology and services, the deal puts at least a few competitors in an uncomfortable position. "DataFlux and IBM should be shopping around for another channel to provide these capabilities," writes Forrester Analyst Rob Karel in this blog post. "[It's] too risky to rely on the good graces of a tough competitor."

Pitney Bowes Business Insight (formerly Group 1 Software) and Harte-Hanks Trillium Software are two prominent vendors that also offer address validation and correction software and services.

With IBM, Oracle and SAP stepping up their bundling of data quality and Master Data Management (MDM) software in recent years, Karel says the AddressDoctor deal provides further evidence that Informatica is headed in the same direction. Last spring, Informatica acquired Identity Systems, a software company offering advanced entity resolution and matching capabilities.

"These [Identity Systems and AddressDoctor] acquisitions are just the appetizers for Informatica as they determine how they can most successfully enter the ever-growing MDM market," Karel writes.

Informatica is partnered with independent MDM vendors Initiate Systems and Siperian, and it's logical to assume these companies would be on the acquisition short list should Informatica choose to go deeper into MDM. Siperian embeds both Identity Systems and AddressDoctor technologies, so it already shares code with its long-time data integration partner.

AddressDoctor was a private company, and the terms of its acquisition were not disclosed.