Blog: Colin White

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Microsoft Moves into MDM with Acquisition of Stratature

At the recent Microsoft BI Conference, the company talked a lot about supporting MDM without giving any specific product details. They hinted more details would be revealed in the near future, and today's accoaccouncementt Microsoft is acquiring Stratature shows why they were reluctant to discuss details a few weeks ago.

It's interesting to note that all of the major database vendors (including IBM, Oracle and Teradata) have now acquired MDM products. Stratature is a good fit for Microsoft because it is 100 percent based on Microsoft technology including SQL Server and .NET.

Stratature's flagship product is EDM (enterprise dimension management), which provides a centralized solution and repository for coordinating, integrating, and reconciling master data, dimensional information, and reporting hierarchies across BI and operational systems. Key product features include a web-based interface, workflow, change management and version control, role-based security, a business rules engine, and a services-based architecture.

This acquisition continues Microsoft's thrust into the enterprise. It's strategy to provide lower cost and easier to use products is particularly attractive to enterprises who don't have the resources or money to implement complex solutions from mega vendors like IBM and Oracle, and who also don't always need the vast array of functions and options offered by these latter vendors. The Stratature acquisition provides a good base of master data services on which Microsoft and its partners can build MDM applications.

Posted by Colin White on Thursday, 7 June 2007 | Permalink