IBM has completed its acquisition of StreamSets and webMethods from Software AG for a fee of about €2.13 billion ($2.3 billion). The double-deal, announced at the end of last year, has passed regulatory approval. It adds data ingestion capabilities to IBM’s WatsonX AI and data platform and integration platform as-a-service (iPaas) capabilities to its automation solutions – via the two operations, respectively. IBM said it is now in position to offer “one of the most modern and comprehensive application and data integration platforms in the industry”. It is all about AI, ultimately, it suggested – in an “explosion of apps, APIs, events, and data… across hybrid cloud environments”.
“StreamSets and webMethods currently serve more than 1,500 companies across the globe and will provide additional integration technologies for next-generation AI applications that require data and connectivity to everything, everywhere,” it said in a statement. It quoted IDC, that a billion new “logical” applications will arrive by 2028 – “due to the rapid emergence of generative AI”, and that the global integration software market will exceed $18 billion in 2027. “Application and data integration solutions are critical for application modernization and effectively deploying AI across the enterprise,” it said.
Software AG, the second biggest Germany-based provider of business software after SAP, acquired US-based Streamsets for €524 million in March 2022 – 18 months before it sold 85 percent of its share capital to private equity group Silver Lake for €2.6 billion. Silver Lake also invested €344 million in the firm in 2021. It retains its legacy database business ADABAS Natural, plus its influential IoT and analytics divisions Apama, Cumulocity IoT, and TrendMiner. Its integration division, webMethods, into which StreamSets was integrated following its purchase in 2022, was its single biggest concern, but much of its growth is with its remaining inter-related IoT and analytics units.
StreamSets brings cloud-based data ingestion to the Watsonx platform, the New York firm said. It explained: “Data ingestion helps move massive amounts of data from multiple sources to a centralised storage centre where it can be utilised by other systems/applications. When data moves between sources and targets, streaming tools like StreamSets provide updated data in real-time to target destinations. This… makes it easier for users to ingest, enrich, and harness the potential of streaming data enabled through features like offset handling and delivery guarantees.”
It will enable the design of streaming data pipelines, and support data observability capabilities in multiple patterns of data, said IBM. Meanwhile, IBM explained the value of the webMethods integration platform to untangle the “web of systems, applications, and data silos within business environments”, and to “deploy and execute integrations anywhere, while still including outputs in unified integration flows”. It stated: “This helps global organisations meet local data sovereignty requirements while driving enterprise-wide innovation and… centralised management.”
Streamsets will be integrated as a premium feature with data management tools in the Watsonx platform, and made available across all major hyperscalers. It is already available on Google Cloud Platform, and is to be made available (“in-progress”) on Azure, AWS, and sundry on-prem edge cloud compute engines. IBM plans to extend the webMethods iPaaS to support the IBM integration products, giving current customers a path to multi-cloud hybrid integration.
Dinesh Nirmal, senior vice president of products in IBM’s software business, commented: “This is an important acquisition for IBM as we help our clients turn complexities into competitive advantage. StreamSets and webMethods bring new capabilities to our clients to embrace data and AI to better manage the growth and complexity of applications. We will empower integrators, developers, and line of business IT to build and manage integrations at an even greater and more impactful scale.”
When the deal was originally announced, Software AG called it a “significant validation of its vision for AI-enabled enterprise integration platforms”. Sanjay Brahmawar, chief executive at Software AG, said at the timw: “Given IBM’s global scale and focus on hybrid cloud and AI, our people have a fantastic opportunity to develop the Super iPaaS proposition with them… Software AG and IBM are fully committed to delivering the best products and services available to their customers, and to contribute to their success.”
