IBM Enhances Digital Marketing Services With Unica Acquisition

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Just two months after picking up Web analytics firm Coremetrics, business software and services giant IBM has acquired Unica for $480 million. Unica offers cross-channel marketing communications and operations management, campaign personalization tools, as well as e-mail marketing and Web analytics services.

IBM is gradually building a digital and cross-channel marketing services and analytics powerhouse. The acquisition is in line with IBM's Coremetrics purchase in June, which the firm said would help it expand analytics services for current clients such as those in retail, financial services, and travel, as well as bring in new clients.

The Unica addition will build on IBM's offerings in automated marketing management, customer preference analysis, CRM, online marketing, and marketing operations, IBM said in a statement. According to the statement, Unica's technology will grow IBM's Business Analytics and Optimization Consulting practice, in which the company has pumped $11 billion worth of acquisitions in a five-year span. Unica's 1,500 worldwide clients include Best Buy, eBay, ING, and US Cellular.

When IBM announced the Coremetrics deal, the company said it expected to generate $16 billion in business analytics and optimization revenue by 2015. Earlier this year, IBM also acquired Sterling Commerce, an AT&T-owned company that offers an e-commerce platform, as well as B2B collaboration software. The company also purchased predictive analysis and data mining firm SPSS last year, and business intelligence software company Cognos in 2007.

IBM will add Unica's 500 employees to its Software Solutions team assuming the deal is closed in the fourth quarter of this year, as anticipated.