More proof of the growing importance of business intelligence: IBM announced yesterday the acquisition of Unica, a marketing software company.
Unica’s software automates the process of predicting customer preferences, and designing ad campaigns based on that information. The software also monitors the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
The Boston Herald, here are the details of the IBM-Unica deal:
The $480 million all-cash acquisition would give IBM the tools to meet its customers growing demand for targeted advertising, a relatively new area for the company. In June, the Armonk, N.Y., company agreed to buy Coremetrics Inc., a company that helps target online marketing.
Unica is well-known in the CRM industry. We found the IBM-Unica deal very interesting since Unica monitors the market for customer feedback, and monitors ad campaigns. The power of information is a valuable tool and we see it everyday. In a random bit of trivia:
Unica’s chief executive, Yuchun Lee, was one of the MIT math students involved in the blackjack card-counting teams depicted in the book “Bringing Down the House” and the movie “21.”
