IBM to acquire Unica Corp

IBM Corp has announced that it has agreed to buy the marketing services company Unica Corp in a $480 million deal that would give IBM more tools to meet its customers' growing demand for targeted advertising.

The all-cash acquisition brings IBM deeper into the advertising business, a relatively new area for the company.

It also expands IBM's software business, its most profitable division and the main focus of a $20 billion acquisition spree for IBM over the past few years.

Unica, based in Waltham, Mass., offers software that automates the process of predicting customer preferences, designing advertising campaigns based on that information and measuring how effective they are.

“The rise of the Web as an advertising platform has heightened demand for marketing that has a measurable impact. And IBM wants to provide the tools for doing that kind of targeting” says IBM's general manager for Industry Solutions, Craig Hayman.

Unica generates annual revenue of more than $100 million and has more than 1,500 clients, including Best Buy Co. and eBay Inc.

• Tweet
• Share
• Share
• Share
• Share