In-Depth

New wrinkles in data integration business

• By Alan R. Earls
• March 1, 2004

"The data integration market has gotten a black eye in recent years because many large vendors have failed to deliver on their promises," said Michael Hoskins, former president of Data Junction. "They have tried to approach the heterogeneous and ever-changing market with a heavy-handed, inflexible model."

Reflecting some of the evolutionary real-time forces that are roiling the messaging, integration and business intelligence worlds, Pervasive Software Inc. recently acquired its neighbor, Austin, Texas-based Data Junction Corp., a pioneering data and application integration company. Hoskins, who is now vice president and general manager of Pervasive's Integration Products Division, said the combination is the outgrowth of Pervasive's long-term focus on bringing a broader but still interrelated product set under one roof and a strategy to be the global value leader in data infrastructure software.

In particular, Data Junction brings data integration and transformation technologies and products together with Pervasive's existing data management products and expertise.

"We believe the industry needs a low-TCO value leader that can offer an entire, coherent data management and integration stack," Hoskins said. And, he noted, Pervasive is not just targeting its traditional stronghold in the SMB market but also departments of large organizations, "maybe even scaling to the enterprise." Hoskins said the future is bright for the combined company because "integration is very hot; it is a universal need." He noted that both Gartner Inc. and IBM estimate that integration projects consume nearly one-third of typical IT budgets. And that, Hoskins said, is an opportunity for Pervasive to provide affordable, easy-to-use technology.

Please see the following related stories:
"Getting real about real-time BI" by Alan R. Earls
"DB design and app development: Why can't we be friends?" by Alan R. Earls
"Sorting out the meaning of BPM" by Wayne Eckerson