IBM Completes Acquisition of The Now Factory
IBM today announced that it has completed the acquisition of The Now Factory, a privately held provider of analytics software that helps communications service providers (CSPs) deliver better customer experiences and drive new revenue opportunities. The company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Using The Now Factory's software, CSPs can gain real-time insights into their customers by analyzing massive quantities of network and business data. They can also now provide an enhanced quality of service to their customers by better managing negative experiences and network outages. The Now Factory's software also helps them better understand how a subscriber interacts with cloud-based services, such as mobile applications.
The demand for this type of software is being driven by the explosion of growth in the volume of real-time data that is being produced by mobile devices - and the strain it is putting on mobile networks to collect and process events instantly, monitor performance, and understand the impact of customer interaction. According to IDC, mobile devices will overtake PC shipments during Q4 2013 and annually by 2015.
"IBM sees an enormous opportunity for telecommunications providers to apply The Now Factory's software to better understand their customers in this highly competitive industry," said Bob Picciano, General Manager, Information Management, IBM Software Group. "In addition, the combination of IBM and The Now Factory will further extend advanced real-time big data and analytics capabilities to help clients uncover new revenue opportunities in the burgeoning mobile marketplace."
The Now Factory enhances IBM's Big Data Platform to bring a new class of analytics solutions to the market. For example, IBM InfoSphere Streams augments The Now Factory data mediation and analytics, and extends the range of use cases to include more real-time analytics on data in motion. The Now Factory's clients can also access IBM PureData System for Analytics and Hadoop-based IBM InfoSphere BigInsights for exploration and deep analysis of subscriber and network data.
This acquisition also complements the IBM MobileFirst Analytics portfolio, which is designed to enhance the way organizations analyze mobile device usage to provide exceptional customer experiences.
Today's news is part of IBM's long term strategy to support strong expected growth in big data and analytics, an area of IBM's business that is expected to reach $20 billion in revenue by 2015. IBM has established the world's deepest portfolio of Big Data and Analytics technologies and industry expertise, including almost 9,000 dedicated business analytics and optimization consultants, over 500 patents and 400 researchers. IBM continues to expand its ecosystem, which consists of more than 27,000 IBM business partners --and has established nine global analytics solution centers in Berlin, Beijing, London, New York, Ohio, Tokyo, Washington and Zurich.
