Microsoft Gobbles up Small Data Management Vendor
Microsoft Corp. has purchased a small, privately held data management company and will use the technology to enhance its SQL Server database, Office and related business software, the company said Thursday.
Stratature Inc., a 16-person based company in Alpharetta, Ga., provides master data management (MDM) software called +EDM that manages a central repository of reference data that a disparate group of enterprise IT systems can access. Microsoft plans to deliver capabilities from Stratature’s software to business users through a combination of Microsoft Office on the front end and its SQL Server database on the back end.
Microsoft is promoting the latest version of its Office suite for business users as a collaboration platform, and a big part of this plan has been providing tighter integration with Office and other applications where users need to share data across business units. The company is especially interested in providing storage and management for the unstructured data that is becoming more prevalent in the enterprise, and is making this a key focus for the next version of SQL Server, code-named Katmai and recently named SQL Server 2008.
