It's been quite a while since I've been in the blogging scene. Since writing the SSIS book, I've been very busy on a new project building a strategy for MDM at Microsoft. After 14 months of studying, thinking, discussing, presenting, reviewing, approving, socializing, powerpointing....... 

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Microsoft has successfully acquired Stratature.

It's been a long road, but all the effort has paid off and we were able to close the deal to acquire Stratature yesterday.  

Here's the 411:

  • Microsoft is acquiring Stratature, a private company based in Alpharetta, GA., a provider of Master Data Management (MDM) products. This acquisition will help accelerate Microsoft’s delivery of technology in the MDM market.
  • Stratature’s technology and product portfolio will become a core part of Microsoft’s product offering, and will significantly enhance the value delivered to customers to manage their important business hierarchies.
  • MDM capabilities will be delivered through Microsoft Office system applications and servers on top of an infrastructure provided from SQL Server. Over time, these capabilities will become an integral part of the Microsoft Office Business Platform, benefiting our customer’s investments in our PerformancePoint, Dynamics, Project Server, and SharePoint lines of products.
  • Stratature’s existing customers will continue to receive the same level of support they received from Stratature prior to the acquisition. Microsoft and Stratature will work together to ensure all customer and partner agreements are satisfied.
  • Future equivalent and additional functionality will be provided through Microsoft branded products.

Here's what some analysts and industry observers had to say:

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=53834&src=site-marq

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Microsoft-buys-into-master-data-management/0,130061733,339278352,00.htm

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9727047-7.html

http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.asp?pmillid=20472

 While we believe that this is a very positive step in the right direction, we also recognize that it's just a first step. Stratature provides an analytical solution that is similar to, but different than transactional MDM. As we move forward developing and releasing the product, look here for regular updates and insights into our progress. If you have further questions and would like to speak to someone at Microsoft to get further insight into our MDM roadmap, please send email to MDMVibe@Microsoft.com

For today, we take a deep breath and congratulate Ian Ahern and the entire Stratature team for the fantastic work they have done in building a world class MDM product. We look forward to further building on their solid product successes.

I'm excited to have completed this acquisition, but I'm perhaps even more excited about the caliber of the team that we're pulling together to deliver the vision. More on this later, but if you look around the net a bit, possibly search on MDM and my name, I bet you could figure out who else is already along for the ride...  

Watch this space for more breaking news and discussion about Microsoft's Master Data Management story.

By the way, if you're at TechEd in Orlando, be sure to check out Bill Baker's talk in the morning. He'll be talking a bit obout this. Might even be a demo.

Universe.Earth.Software.Microsoft.Office.MDM.KirkHaselden