DWL, a provider of customer integration software, has been on a roll recently.

Now, the Atlanta-based firm is getting a new owner.

IBM.

Big Blue said Tuesday it was acquiring the privately held software firm. Terms were not disclosed. The move is intended to “strengthen IBM’s information management portfolio,” IBM said in a statement.
DWL and IBM are not strangers. The companies have worked together on customer implementations in the past. DWL is an IBM strategic business partner.

Just last week, DWL announced a series of new customer wins, including Honeywell, Staples, Sun Trust Bank and two others it did not disclose by name. One was described as the “largest US retail banking corporation”, the other as a “regional insurer.” DWL says it has 25 of the Fortune 500 as customers.

DWL employs some 150 people and has major operations in Toronto.
DWL’s middleware is designed to present an integrate view of customer or prospect data across an enterprise. IBM said it wants to expand its capabilities in this area as part of its “On-Demand” strategy.

“The ability to cut through complexity and provide an accurate view of the customer is one of the most important aspects of information management today,” said Janet Perna, general manager of Information Management for IBM. “With this acquisition, IBM can now deliver the industry’s most comprehensive set of master data management solutions on the market. We are providing an integrated middleware infrastructure that manages information and aligns that information in real time with business processes.”

DWL was founded in 1996.

“Organizations recognize the need to put the customer at the center of their business processes and move away from traditional silos of information generated in various locations, or created by multiple customer applications providing different views of the same customer,” said John Baumstark, CWL’s chief executive officer. “Customer data integration is a key enabler to achieving customer centricity and DWL has worked with IBM as a strategic business partner in helping numerous organizations to create consolidated views of their customers.”

DWL is IBM’s 10th acquisition in the information management space since 2001, according to Reuters.

IBM: www.ibm.com

DWL: www.dwl.com