Ascential acquires data quality leader Vality for $92m

Ascential Software is to acquire privately held Vality Technology of Boston in a cash transaction valued at $92 million. The transaction is expected to close next month, subject to approval of Vality shareholders and other customary closing conditions. The merger is expected to benefit Ascential`s bottom line by year-end.

Vality is a recognised industry leader in enterprise data quality management, a vital prerequisite for the success of data-intensive applications such as customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), business intelligence (BI) and analytics, data warehousing and e-business applications.

With 2001 revenues of $21.2 million, Vality has over 500 customers, primarily in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications, retail and government markets. These include Barclays, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cingular Wireless, CMP, John Deere, Marks & Spencer, Motorola, National Westminster Bank, Premera Blue Cross, UPS and the US Department of Agriculture.

Ascential South Africa GM Julian Field comments: "Vality`s enterprise data quality solutions are a natural complement to our enterprise data integration offerings. The combination puts Ascential further ahead in the market, and boosts our global revenue-generating ability.

"The transaction is another major milestone in our strategy to establish Ascential as the clear leader in enterprise data integration."

As a result of the acquisition, Ascential remains on track to achieve profitability during the fourth quarter of 2002.

This acquisition will create an offering that integrates ETL (extraction, transformation and load), metadata management and data quality and cleansing technologies. Customers will benefit from the superior functionality and ease of use available in a single integrated data integration solution, rather than having to piece together different products from several vendors. Customers also will benefit by having a single vendor for all enterprise data integration, professional services and support requirements.

"The Ascential DataStage product family is now the industry`s most comprehensive set of data integration products, enabling companies worldwide to create and manage from a single platform and interface their data integration infrastructure," adds Field.

"Data integration and data quality are fundamental prerequisites for the successful implementation of enterprise applications, such as CRM, SCM and ERP," says Ted Friedman, senior analyst at Gartner Research. "The market for data quality will continue to expand as enterprises realise the major advantages and cost savings to be achieved by ensuring that the data they integrate is complete and accurate. Gartner estimates that the market opportunity for such solutions will be several times the size of the current worldwide revenue for data quality."

The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI) has reported that in a poll of enterprise IT managers, 47% of respondents said integrated data quality was the feature they most wanted in an ETL/data integration product set. The institute also reported that poor quality data costs businesses $611 billion a year in the US alone (TDWI Report Series: Data Quality and the Bottom Line, January 2002). Ascential`s expanded suite of enterprise data integration and data quality solutions are vital elements for the worldwide CRM, SCM and ERP markets, which Gartner estimates should grow to $17.4 billion by 2003.

"As a Vality OEM Partner, and the leading global provider of e-business and application integration solutions, SeeBeyond applauds this marriage of enterprise data integration and data quality management technologies," says Kate Mitchell, senior VP, marketing and business development for SeeBeyond. "Data integration at all levels requires quality-assured data from the beginning to produce results customers expect."