Microsoft has signed an agreement to purchase Israeli start-up and enterprise data management vendor Zoomix, which was founded in 1999. According to Microsoft, the acquisition will allow it to provide customers with a data quality solution and further enhance its plans to make the SQL Server a “complete data platform for all data management needs”.
Following the acquisition, Zoomix’s development staff will join the Microsoft research and development centre in Israel, and the Zoomix solutions will be added to those of the Microsoft International SQL Server group. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but rumours suggest that Microsoft paid around US$25 million for the start-up.
Zoomix Accelerator, the company’s main product, uses a guided self-learning technology to learn how to parse, match, classify, and clean data. This accumulated knowledge is then applied to every new piece of information fed into the Zoomix system.
Moshe Lichtman, vice president of Microsoft International and president of R&D in Israel, explains: “Microsoft’s additional investment in Israel takes our research and development centre into the field of solutions for databases, a field that is growing rapidly and is very strategic for Microsoft International. Zoomix will contribute a critical layer of data improvement to Microsoft’s SQL Server Data Platform.”
He continues: “This capability will enable organisations to meet the requirements of complex information systems, and to streamline business processes, and is therefore expected to have a great impact on the organisation’s bottom line.”
Amir Biran, CEO of Zoomix, adds: “Our goal at Zoomix is to leverage new, sophisticated technological approaches to address critical data quality challenges in line with enterprise business processes. Microsoft has the vision and the business scale required to maximise the potential of Zoomix’s core technologies by building them into data quality solutions, which will provide in line data improvement capabilities for a variety of applications and industries.”
