Tibco boosts BI with Insightful buy

BI Software News : Tibco boosts BI with Insightful buy

Tibco purchases statistics and data mining specialist Insightful in a deal worth nearly $25 million

By Tom Jowitt, IDG News Service

Tibco Software is to boost its business optimization portfolio after announcing that it would purchase data mining specialist Insightful in a deal worth nearly $25 million.

Insightful specializes in statistics and data mining tools for business intelligence (BI). The use of predictive analytics allows companies to discern patterns, trends, and relationships hidden in the data they collect.

Tibco meanwhile provides enterprise software centered around the service-oriented architecture (SOA), business process management (BPM) and business optimization segments. Tibco said it would add Insightful's products to its business optimization portfolio.

The acquisition of Insightful is Tibco's second acquisition in the BI space, after it acquired Spotfire in May 2007 for approximately $195 million in cash.

Under the terms of the Insightful deal, Tibco will pay $1.87 per share in cash, making the deal worth approximately $24.3 million, including certain assumed options. This price represents a premium of 29 percent over the average closing price of Insightful's common stock over the sixty trading day period ending on 18 June, the last trading day before the deal was announced.

"Our Board of Directors has evaluated strategic alternatives for Insightful and has determined that this outcome is in the best interests of our stockholders," said Jeff Coombs, president and CEO of Seattle-based Insightful in a statement.

There is little doubt that it has been something of a tough trading period for Insightful recently. It described its last quarterly financial results as disappointing, after first quarter revenues fell to $4.9 million from $6.2 million, and it reporting a net loss for the quarter.

Prior to that, for the year ending 31 December, revenues slipped to $22.3 million from $24 million in the year prior to that. It also posted a net loss of $1.7 million for the 12 month period.

"Financially it's both a great win and exit strategy for Insightful, a publicly-held company that seemed destined for a fire-sale after a gradual meltdown in new sales," commented Madan Sheina, of analyst house Ovum.

"The company has been treading corporate water to stay afloat for the past few years," he added. "While Tibco is still sitting on a large pile of cash, the big question now is whether the $25 million forked out for Insightful will squeeze Tibco's share price."

Sheina feels that technologically, this acquisition signals a deeper push for Tibco into analytics - following its acquisition of Spotfire. "The Insightful name will probably be dropped as a separate product brand and be merged as part of Tibco Spotfire's Enterprise Analytics Platform. Significantly Insightful's flagship S-Plus statistical data analysis engine, which has powered Spotfire's solution since 2005, now falls under Tibco's direct ownership."

"Expect deeper integration and some interesting opportunities to layer Spotfire's visualization capabilities for data mining," said Sheina. "What the future holds for existing Insightful customers is unclear at this stage."

The deal is expected to close during Tibco's fiscal third quarter, which ends in August.

"This is a valuable technology for them (Tibco)," said Alys Woodward, program manager (BI and analytics) at IDC. "It certainly does fit in with Spotfire and Tibco's product set."

"Predictive analytics is something that is happening in the market," she added. "Predictive analytics is the next wave in the market, as BI software vendors want to have some sort of predictive capability embedded in their products."

There was also no word on whether any cuts among the 100 or so staff at Insightful.

Tibco would not provide any further comment on the acquisition, denying requests for an interview after consulting its lawyers. A company spokesperson said that because Insightful was a publicly listed company, Tibco would not making any further comments on the deal.

Source: Business Intelligence BI Software information, InfoWorld.com

DecisionSite Research Analytics

Business Intelligence Software : TIBCO Spotfire DecisionSite Research Analytics

DecisionSite is a highly visual and intuitive research analytics environment that can be used across many areas of R&D. From early-stage research and throughout the entire development process, DecisionSite research analytics helps scientists and analysts understand all of the data available to them so that the highest quality decisions can be made to ensure the best possible chance for success. DecisionSite’s ability to systematically capture best analytic practices while preserving the opportunity for breakthrough discovery is at the heart of the information advantage that life science researchers are seeking.

In the life sciences segment, companies make huge investments in time and resources to bring new drugs to market - a process that takes an average of 15 years and can cost nearly $800 million. As a result, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are using DecisionSite research analytics to predict a new drug's chances for success, both during research and in development, in order to reduce time to market for the best candidates and minimize spending on the poor candidates. DecisionSite research analytics helps scientists increase their productivity, re-purpose data from multiple sources, and apply their knowledge and insight to the discovery process in a unique visual, interactive environment.

DecisionSite research analytics gives researchers the ability to integrate data from genomics, biology and chemistry experiments to understand the complexities of disease and treatment options. By combining lab data with patient demographics and market forecasts, decision makers were able to make choices with far more confidence about which drug candidates to move forward in the development process. Click below for more information about DecisionSite's use in research...

Target Identification: With DecisionSite research analytics, quickly identify the most promising genes, validate these targets by supporting methods such as rtPCR, further understand their biological relevance by incorporating additional information, and apply this information to target disease states.

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Source: For more information on business intelligence software, TIBCO Spotfire DecisionSite Research Analytics, check out http://spotfire.tibco.com/solutions/research_analytics/

Spotfire Clinical Trials Analysis

Business Intelligence Software : Spotfire Clinical Trials Analysis

Spotfire Clinical Trials Analysis allows pharmaceutical companies to make important business decisions about their drug development candidates and strategies. Explore how Spotfire enables companies to fail early by spotting safety issues earlier in the development process by providing a faster and more flexible environment to explore and understand key aspects of safety and efficacy in their studies.

Source: For more information on business intelligence software, TIBCO Spotfire Clinical Trials Analysis, check out http://spotfire.tibco.com/solutions/clinical_data_analytics/

TIBCO Spotfire Analytic Solutions Improve Performance

Business Intelligence Software : TIBCO Spotfire Analytic Solutions Improve Performance

For the first time, organizations can truly compete on analytics and improve operational performance on an organizational level. With TIBCO Spotfire, enterprise analytics operational teams are armed with an easy to use, self-service environment that allows users to run at their own speed, discovering new insights and addressing emerging threats. With Spotfire analytic solutions, data is quickly analyzed to assist in making important decisions

Publishing and sharing analytic solutions that span business processes facilitates the exchange of new ideas. It also enforces best practices and accepted analytic solutions procedures across an organization. Spotfire makes it effortless to create cross-functional discussions around the data, which increases the speed and confidence around big bet decisions in the face of expanding data volume and complexity.

Spotfire analytic solutions are used across a broad range of applications and business processes.

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Source: For more information on business intelligence software, Tibco Spotfire Analytic, check out http://spotfire.tibco.com/solutions/applications/