The deal gives SAP user-friendly predictive capabilities
SAP is expanding its arsenal of data-analysis software with the acquisition of predictive analytics vendor KXEN, announced Tuesday.
Predictive analytics has a different goal than traditional BI (business intelligence) software. Rather than generating reports and dashboards off stores of business data, predictive analytics uses statistical models to search for correlations and patterns that might offer clues about customer behavior, market trends and other areas.
KXEN's tools are designed to be friendly for business users analysts and will complement SAP's existing predictive analytics offering, the company said in a statement.
In addition, KXEN can help companies put predictive analytic capabilities into users' hands with less involvement from IT, thanks to a semantic layer it has developed, according to its website.
"In a nutshell, power users define a broad set of reusable business components, called analytical records, which can be applied over and over again to automatically create the analytical data sets used for modeling," a description on the site states.
SAP plans to align the KXEN technology with its line of on-premises ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications, as well as its SaaS (software as a service) portfolio and HANA in-memory database, according to the announcement.
Why predictive analytics matters
The keys to smarter data anlaytics
How predictive analytics is tackling customer attrition at AMEX
All told, the deal will give SAP more tools to compete with other predictive analytics vendors, including SAS Institute, IBM and Oracle.
"We expect the market for big data predictive analytics solutions to be vibrant, highly competitive, and flush with new entrants over the next three years," states a Forrester Research report issued earlier this year. Competitive battle lines will center on which vendors can deliver the best data handling, easiest-to-use tools, and the widest choice of analytic algorithms, the report adds.
The KXEN acquisition is expected to close by the end of this year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
Our latest CMO 2022 readiness episode on the great resignation and staff motivation and leadership is now live!
Your success as a senior marketing professional has much in common with your success as a leader. Both marketing, and leadership activities, depend on building trust, encouraging action, and reliably fulfilling promises that have been made.
Between further interest rate rises, inflation, empty shelves, extortionate lettuce prices, supply chain issues and the barely believable events in Eastern Europe, the past six months there’s been a cacophony of environmental factors.
Imposter syndrome. That feeling others will discover you are actually not as good as they expect, and at any point you will be exposed and ridiculed as a fraud. If you can relate to this, then you are not alone.
Investment decisions are a big deal, so why not get some guidance? You can day-trade cryptos, BUY and HOLD and evaluate the assets with f...
Dave Sigurd
Gartner: Digital isn't enough of a superpower for CMOs anymore
I normally don’t feel comfortable investing online but because the company I worked for downsized due to the pandemic and I was one of th...
Dave Sigurd
CMO's top 8 martech stories for the week - 9 June 2022
Investment decisions are a big deal, so why not get some guidance? You can day-trade cryptos, BUY and HOLD and evaluate the assets with f...
Dave Sigurd
Creating a marketplace for wellness
A solution for an retail industry data extraction. https://e-scraper.com/usefu...
"e-Scraper" Data Extracting
Catchoftheday launches fee-based online shopping club
As an ex employee of 4 years during the growth of the company, I can say that the new management has benefitted the company tremendously,...
Harry
How JobAdder's CMO is bringing the human truth to B2B rebranding