Tibco to Acquire Spotfire in BI Move

Responding to growing customer demand for software to help analyze critical business information quickly and effectively, Tibco Software has agreed to acquire business intelligence software vendor Spotfire.

The deal, announced Tuesday, is valued at about US$195 million and expected to close in the third quarter.

Tibco, which makes software centered on service-oriented architecture (SOA), business process management and business optimization, aims to combine its real-time infrastructure with Spotfire’s enterprise analytics platform to offer businesses an easy, quick way to access and analyze their data and processes, the companies said.

Customers want to be able to analyze “data in motion,” Tibco Chairman and CEO Vivek Ranadive said in a conference call. By combining Tibco’s real-time infrastructure with the “fluid way” Spotfire’s BI software analyzes data, the companies will be able to meet this demand, he said.

Ranadive referred to Spotfire’s software as a “truly market dislocating technology” that Tibco aims to use to “broaden its footprint with customers,” initially in the financial services sector.

Spotfire software offers users a contextual way to analyze their data, according to CEO Christopher Ahlberg. “We provide a Web 2.0-like service that is visual and interactive,” he said.

The company, founded 1996 and based in Somerville, Mass., has 200 employees and 800 customers, with about 60 percent of its sales generated in the United States, according to Ahlberg.

Following the acquisition, Spotfire will continue to operate independently, Ranadive said.

Separately, Tibco announced plans to buy back $300 million of its outstanding common stock.