Dell this morning announced the acquisition of StatSoft, a leading provider of innovative advanced analytics solutions. It’s an outstanding addition to the Dell Software family from both a strategic and technical standpoint, and we couldn’t be more excited. From where I sit as vice president and general manager of Dell Software’s information management group, our acquisition of StatSoft is significant for a number of reasons beyond just those outlined in our press announcement, and I’d like to take a moment to walk through a few of them.
An industry recognized company. StatSoft is widely recognized as having one the strongest and most complete sets of capabilities in the industry, as well as for delivering top-quality customer service. For example, in a recent survey of more than 1,300 data professionals conducted by Rexer Analytics, StatSoft received the highest rates of customer adoption and satisfaction in predictive analytics, far outpacing industry rivals. This is a company and a product line that customers love.
Advanced analytics are a competitive requirement. Advanced analytics and the statistical algorithms that enable them are more important than ever before, as evidenced by the recent wave of acquisitions and consolidation in the space. The challenge of pulling knowledge and insights out of data is one companies must overcome. Those that do will thrive; those that don’t will risk being disrupted and ultimately displaced by their competitors.
Data has grown beyond human comprehension. Data has grown to a size, scale and level of complexity beyond the scope of human intelligence. It simply cannot be managed with intuition and spreadsheets. The advanced analytics StatSoft delivers have become a key part of the complete tool kit modern data scientists need.
Proven industry track record. StatSoft has a long track record with customers in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, risk management, fraud detection, and research. These organizations have leveraged StatSoft’s tools to get more from their data. Now, we have the opportunity to bring this level of vertical expertise and capability to our customers and channel partners.
International reach. StatSoft operates worldwide through offices and partners in 25 countries, and has a customer base that spans the globe. Its products are available in numerous languages. By adding StatSoft to the Dell family, we benefit our customers and channel partners by expanding our own international reach, in the process opening up numerous opportunities to develop multi-lingual content and add value to users.
Synergy across Dell: StatSoft has proven its ability to deliver value to customers in and of itself, but by leveraging synergies across the broader Dell portfolio, we can deliver even more value. For example, in combination with Dell Software’s Kitenga Analytics solution, StatSoft can potentially be expanded to deliver Natural Language Processing on Big Data analysis tasks. StatSoft’s software runs on Dell’s affordable x86 server platforms, and myriad opportunities exist to leverage StatSoft in concert with Dell’s hardware solutions, and by way of its numerous industry relationships, including those with SAP Hana, Oracle, Microsoft SQL and PDW, and Cloudera.
Continued growth and investment. The acquisition of StatSoft was in every way a strategic one for our information management software business – the latest step in a long-term and still-ongoing plan to assemble a compelling collection of data and information management capabilities. As with the acquisitions of Boomi, Quest and Kitenga before it, StatSoft broadens the scope of our information management capabilities, allowing us to extend into new solution areas and bring greater value to our customers and channel partners. Going forward, you can fully expect continued growth and investment in this key solution area.
I’d like to close by acknowledging the work the StatSoft team has done in building not only a great collection of tools and technologies, but a world-class company that has earned the trust and loyalty of customers across the world. They’ve built an advanced analytics solution that can help real companies solve real problems, but more importantly, they’ve always made doing right by the customer their number one priority. That will assuredly continue as we welcome them to the Dell Software family.
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