'The Big Will Get Bigger'

Continuing to enhance its data-management and business-intelligence product roster, IBM is acquiring Alphablox Corp., a privately held maker of software used to build analytical capabilities into enterprise applications. The cost wasn't disclosed. "The big will get bigger. You will see more acquisitions," said Steven Mills, IBM's senior VP for software, at a conference at Stanford University last week.

Alphablox software consists of data-analysis modules that developers build into applications. Embedding analytics into operational applications is critical because business intelligence is increasingly done in real time, says Anant Jhingran, business-intelligence director in IBM's Silicon Valley Lab.

IBM will sell the products as IBM DB2 Alphablox for Unix and Windows. It also will embed Alphablox business-intelligence modules in IBM products such as DB2 Data Warehouse Edition and IBM's business-process-management suite.