Gartner Magic Quadrant: Top Tools For Cleaning Up Your Data

11 Cool Ways to Use Machine Learning

Analytics projects can boost sales results, improve healthcare outcomes for individual patients, and even help shoppers home in on the top holiday gift ideas for this year. But the success of those kinds of projects and so many others is only possible if the data going into business processes and analytics efforts is quality data. It doesn't matter how big your data is if the data isn't good.

The recently released Gartner Magic Quadrant report for Data Quality Tools 2015 is designed to provide a snapshot, as well as a comprehensive overview, of the tools available that can help organizations improve their data quality.

"Given the scale and complexity of the data landscape, across organizations of all sizes and in all industries, tools to help automate key elements of this discipline continue to attract more interest and to grow in value," authors Saul Judah, research director, and Ted Friedman, VP and distinguished analyst, wrote in the Gartner report. "Consequently, the data quality tools market continues to show substantial growth, while also exhibiting innovation and change."

[What does Gartner think about forces impacting the database market? Read Gartner Magic Quadrant: Open Source, Cloud Disrupt Database Market.]

Gartner's scope is big when it looks at this market, and it includes many different types of tools in different categories.

For instance, the report includes several categories of tools that work to ensure the quality of the actual data, such as data profiling and quality measurement tools, among other categories. Gartner also includes tools that are not exclusive to data quality management. They are used in other IT functions, too.

But the research firm includes them in this report because they are components in the process of ensuring data quality. These include tools that perform metadata management, and those that ensure international support.

Who are Gartner's leaders for 2015? Seven companies are in the Leaders quadrant this year -- IBM, Informatica, Information Builders, Oracle, SAS, SAP, and Trillium Software. There are 11 other vendors total in the other three quadrants combined.

In the Leaders quadrant, Informatica ranked the highest for both "completeness of vision" and "ability to execute," closely followed by IBM.

Informatica has about 3,100 customers for its data quality products, including Informatica Data Quality, Informatica Data as a Service, and Rev, according to Gartner. The research firm said that Informatica has grown its marketshare in all industries and geographies, and that customers say that Informatica's products shine when it comes to ease-of-use for technical and non-technical users alike.

But the company faces pricing pressure in competitive situations, according to Gartner, and some customers report going with other tools due to pricing. The company has addressed this in recent months, however, Gartner said.

IBM's ranking in the Leaders quadrant comes from its IBM InfoSphere Information Server for Data Quality, which Gartner estimates has about 2,500 customers. The research firm said the product's strengths include its status as an enterprise-wide standard that can be applied to many data domains and use-cases. It also offers enhanced information governance functionality. 

Weaknesses with IBM's solution include the cost model, the user experience, and the difficulty in making product upgrades, Gartner said. Both the cost of IBM's software and the perceived total cost of ownership were cited by customers. According to the research firm,  IBM continues to address product complexity, but the job is not finished. 

Of those companies ranked in the Leaders quadrant, Information Builders was the only one whose pricing was not cited as an area of concern for customers.

While a handful of the companies in this Magic Quadrant offer SaaS-based options for data quality tools, only one of the Leaders -- Trillium Software -- was specifically cited as offering tools this way. Trillium offers SaaS-based tools, in addition about a dozen different tools that fit into Gartner's data quality report.

"Trillium has delivered strong growth in market share across all industries and geographies and is achieving significant growth in its SaaS business," the Gartner analysts wrote in their report. 

**New deadline of Dec. 18, 2015** Be a part of the prestigious InformationWeek Elite 100! Time is running out to submit your company's application by Dec. 18, 2015. Go to our 2016 registration page: InformationWeek's Elite 100 list for 2016.