IBM to acquire DWL

SAN FRANCISCO: IBM on Tuesday said it will buy privately held DWL Inc., a supplier of customer data integration software that allows companies to combine business operations or merge with other companies.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

DWL, with headquarters in Atlanta and Toronto, is a provider of database "middleware" that stitches together customer information housed in separate silos across a company, from sales and marketing databases to call centers to Web sites.

The software is in hot demand among customers seeking to merge companies using different systems, or to pull together a common view of data in order to meet mounting regulatory requirements, DWL CEO John Baumstark said in an interview.

DWL software manages what are known as "master data records" that link together all related client data. It is built to run on top of IBM central data integration platform, known as WebSphere.

For example, a bank may use DWL software to keep track of all the different bank accounts, credit cards, investments and other retail services a client may have with the bank, in order to improve customer service.

DWL joins recent IBM acquisitions including Venetica, a maker of software that links up data residing in different content management repositories within an organization, Trigo, a supplier of data synchronization software that helps companies manage shipments using radio frequency technology, and now Ascential, another data integration software supplier.

"This software is a significant piece of the puzzle. DWL is making it easier for companies to get a unified view of their customers," Janet Perna, IBM's general manager of information management software, said in a phone interview.

The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions and is expected to close later in 2005.