Local Tech Wire

CARY, N.C. – is expanding its footprint, acquiring privately held Memex, a software firm focusing on intelligence management.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Memex, a privately held firm, is based in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1979, the firm works with more than 100 100 private sector clients and public sector intelligence organizations

Although SAS, the world’s largest privately held software firm with an emphasis on business intelligence and analytics, already has a presence in security and public safety markets, Chief Executive Officer Jim Goodnight said the company wants to expand that business.

“The Memex acquisition is a key element of our global initiative to enhance our law enforcement, criminal justice, homeland security and intelligence offerings,” Goodnight said. “I want SAS to be the first company public security organizations call to help them apply analytics to solve crime and protect citizens.”

According to SAS, "The acquisition of Memex will enable SAS to form the key element of an international business to sell both SAS and Memex solutions to the national security, intelligence and law enforcement communities."

The deal was announced at a SAS conference in Berlin. (SAS also announced )

SAS plans to “grow the business globally under the existing executive management team,” the company said.

"There are 90 employees in the Glasgow HQ and 20 more in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.," SAS spokesperson Beverly Brown told Local Tech Wire. "We plan to retain them all."

However, a SAS executive will serve as Memex chairman. Assuming that role is Ian Manocha, managing director of SAS in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

"The Memex executive management team will stay on, including CEO David Carrick, who will now be CEO of Memex, a SAS company," Brown said.

Carrick will report into Manocha.

“In many countries, the law enforcement, justice, homeland security and defense intelligence markets have been separate, each maintaining its own data,” Manocha said in a statement. “SAS is expanding its ability to share and use data more efficiently and effectively across local, national and global levels with an aim toward predicting and preventing crime.”

In the announcement, SAS said a SAS-Memex combination would enable the Cary-based firm to grow in what it called “fusion centers” – operations that combine information from numerous agencies.

Memex already works with several such centers, according to SAS.

Memex customers include the Georgia Bureau of investigation, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and numerous police departments, including Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

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