Data warehousing powerhouse Teradata has acquired BI/DW solutions provider Claraview. The news is there on Claraview's Web site</a>, "Claraview is a division of Teradata Corporation,..." but I don't have a clue why Teradata hasn't seen fit to announce the acquisition. There are a few hints of the take-over out on the Web, and an individual in a position to know told me the deal is (or was) "an open secret."

Seth Grimes, Contributor

March 20, 2008

2 Min Read

Intelligent Enterprise and TechWeb are not the New York Times, so we get to publish some of the news that's seemingly Not Fit to Print:

Data warehousing powerhouse Teradata has acquired BI/DW solutions provider Claraview.

The news is there on Claraview's Web site — "Claraview is a division of Teradata Corporation (www.teradata.com), the world's largest company solely focused on raising intelligence through data warehousing and enterprise analytics" — but I don't have a clue why Teradata hasn't seen fit to announce the acquisition. There are a few hints of the take-over out on the Web, and an individual in a position to know told me the deal is (or was) "an open secret."With this acquisition, Teradata is following in the footsteps of HP, which bought BI consultancy Knightsbridge a bit over a year ago. A strong professional-services arm allows a hardware vendor to better ensure successful customer deployments, and it allows the hardware vendor to better build out solutions targeted to particular industries or business functions. These particular moves — HP's Knightsbridge take-over and Teradata's acquisition of Claraview — position the acquiring companies to better compete with their biggest rivals, HP, IBM, and Oracle.

Teradata is publicly traded with $1.7 billion in 2007 revenues. The company is far smaller than HP, IBM, or Oracle — its market valuation is less than one-third Sun Microsystems' — yet its data-warehousing market presence certainly matches that of its much-larger competitors. Smaller data-warehouse appliance vendors including Netezza and DATAllegro are nipping at Teradata's heels, however. The Claraview take-over will help Teradata maintain position.

The deal makes eminent sense for Claraview's principals who started text-analytics vendor Clarabridge in 2005 and who have simultaneously run the latter company, racking up a reported 500% increase in revenues in 2007. (Disclosure: I write a quarterly, editorially independent article for Clarabridge's Bridgepoints newsletter.) The potential growth for an established services firm is going to be slower than that of a software vendor in a rapidly expanding sector. Clarabridge represents the greater opportunity.

That Teradata has a relationship with Clarabridge's rival Attensity suggests that Claraview principals involved with Clarabridge will not remain affiliated with Claraview for long.

Now that the "open secret" is no longer a secret, perhaps Teradata will fill us on plans for Claraview and future directions as an analytical solutions and services vendor.Data warehousing powerhouse Teradata has acquired BI/DW solutions provider Claraview. The news is there on Claraview's Web site, "Claraview is a division of Teradata Corporation,..." but I don't have a clue why Teradata hasn't seen fit to announce the acquisition. There are a few hints of the take-over out on the Web, and an individual in a position to know told me the deal is (or was) "an open secret."

About the Author(s)

Seth Grimes

Contributor

Seth Grimes is an analytics strategy consultant with Alta Plana and organizes the Sentiment Analysis Symposium. Follow him on Twitter at @sethgrimes

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