IBM has signed up to purchase Emptoris, a provider of on premise and cloud-based analytics for businesses procurement and supply chain operations. So far the two have entered into a definitive agreement and the deal is expected to close in Q1 2012 but financial details have not been disclosed.
Emptoris has around 350 customers across 75 countries, including the UK, and is active in verticals including consumer products, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, chemical/oil/gas, utilities, construction and industrial manufacturing. The majority shareholder is Marlin Equality Partners.
It is likely to be a smaller purchase than the $440m DemandTec acquisition announced earlier this month (see IBM gets 3-4-1 with DemandTec: SaaS, analytics and retail) but like DemandTec it will join IBM’s Smart Commerce initiative, which was launched earlier this year.
There’s no question about IBM being back in the software market, albeit in a selective way around analytics, and that it is the ‘changes everything’ cloud aspect that is behind its acquisition-driven programme. Never mind 2012, at this rate IBM may well have more to announce in what remains of this year.