IBM Filling Up on Data

Updated from Nov. 25

IBM(IBM Quote) is betting a billion dollars that it can parlay its investment in a complex technology used to aggregate disparate threads of corporate data into a serious competitive advantage over rivals Oracle(ORCL Quote) and SAP(SAP Quote).

In the last three last years, Big Blue has built a 1,000-person business unit, acquired five privately held companies, and spent heavily on R&D in an effort to exploit the growing market for master data management, or MDM.

Why spend so much? By 2009, the MDM market is expected to grow to $10.4 billion, from $5.4 billion, a compound growth rate of 13.8%, according to market research firm IDC. By contrast, the market for database software is growing at a compounded rate of just 6.4%, though from a much larger base. What's more, master data technology is closely related to both middleware and database software; winning in MDM opens the door to lucrative cross-selling. ...