Whatever the eventual outcome of the proposed acquisition of SPSS for US$1.2B  (This may be less than 1% of IBM’s current market capitalisation – but it is still a tidy sum for such a niche market player) one thing is clear;  It represents a significant punt by one of the leading IT products and services players on the potential value of Predictive Analytics.

An important piece of the acquisition is that IBM have the potential to bring the kind of service delivery –particularly in consulting and implementation - to bear that we haven’t seen in this area to date. IBM Global Services is a major player in Business/IT professional services and Big Blue has already announced the creation of a number of “Analytics Solutions Centers” the latest of which is in China .

This is also part of a broader strategic move into what might be termed “Business Analytics” that started in earnest with the acquisition (for about 4 times the current offer for SPSS) of Cognos in November 2007.

For me there is some déjà vu here. Oracle scanned the market for a Data Mining tool and ended up buying Darwen from Thinking Machines back in 1999. Since then Oracle have integrated Data Mining technology into their database server in what is now known as Oracle Data Mining (ODM). The products and market have matured somewhat since ‘99 and the definition of Predictive Analytics (which is/was always a subset of Data Mining) has helped us present a clearer value proposition to that market.

ODM, however, has always been a small planet relative to the considerably larger Oracle Sun (if you can excuse the pun). Though the IBM move may prompt them to respond. SAS already responded with a very early shot across the bows (SAS warns SPSS' users... ) of their traditional rival (SPSS) and IBM, who - at least in the past - have provided a significant platform for SAS themselves.

So this really does look like a major step up for the world of Predictive Analytics. We’re waiting eagerly for more clues to the IBM strategy.

Analytical People was born out of a realisation that – in the growing debate about the value of analytics – something was missing. The ingredients for the expansion in the areas of advanced analytics are varied and many: there is an ever-growing amount of unrefined data in the world; there are more technologies – both commercial and open source - which can potentially make sense of that data than ever before; there are more current (or potential) savvy consumers of the analytical interpretation of that data than ever ; the vendors and analysts have done a great job of communicating what is possible with analytical approaches; and so on…

The only problem is that there aren’t enough people who can be found and deployed effectively enough to make the whole thing work. Not enough resource to join the dots. And certainly not enough help to find and grow that resource.

For me it all crystallised when – in my last job with Applied Insights – we were engaged with a multi national customer (one of the internet pioneers in fact) in the early stages of a fairly strategic piece of consulting about how they could link up all their disparate data around customers, ascribe value (or more importantly potential value) to them and ultimately build a process to systematically anticipate and deliver the most relevant content to them. We were discussing which analytical tools they should consider and it became apparent that, given the volume of ongoing analysis they expected to perform - and hence the number of analytical people they would need - then there really was only one of the leading toolsets where there was enough supply of expertise. In other words, despite the plethora of technologies - with their various strengths and weaknesses – our client really had no choice but to go for the market leader.

So in a nutshell we are aiming to help plug the gap between the demand and supply of professional services and resources. We have started to do this in a number of ways by engaging in projects with our own people and those within our network while at the same time looking to consolidate that network … soon we want to do more to grow and develop the talent pool with more partnerships and training activities. Watch this space …