SPSS Acquires Vento Software

Staking its claim in analytical applications, SPSS Inc. announced its purchase of Vento Software, Inc. The transaction, completed on Nov. 29, 1999, was executed as a pooling of interests in which SPSS issued approximately 550,000 shares of its common stock.

Vento Software provides business performance management solutions for business executives in the telecommunications, banking, health care, and retail industries. SPSS has purchased Vento with the intention of integrating its own analytical components into Vento's suite of vertical solutions.

"We believe this acquisition makes a great deal of sense," said Mike Schiff, director of data warehousing strategies at Current Analysis, Inc. "With its existing offerings and the new Vento products, SPSS is extending the complementary technologies of data mining and OLAP to encompass vertical solutions. This framework for measuring, understanding and predicting business performance will benefit SPSS by enhancing its presence in the business community while benefiting the organizations that deploy the resultant analytical applications."

Vento's flagship product, VentoMap, is a packaged business intelligence application that provides decision makers with a highly graphical view of their business performance as well as drill-down analytic capabilities for decision support. Vento provides each vertical market with an industry-specific version of the VentoMap product, customizing each implementation to closely match the way decision makers at customer sites think about their particular business.

"Analytic applications are entering a new phase of growth, and business performance management is an important sector of the overall market," said Henry Morris, vice president of research with International Data Corporation. "SPSS enters the field with its acquisition of Vento, and is positioned to take the market a step further by combining business performance management with a strong vertical market orientation and the predictive power of data mining technology. Merging these three components expands the breadth and impact of analytic applications and further increases the value these applications bring to the market."

VentoMap applications transform operational data into business intelligence by delivering information in the form of key performance indicators (KPI). After a series of consultations with the customer, Vento and the customer select the appropriate indicators, and then Vento delivers a customized solution. To arrive at the solution, Vento uses a robust, systematic approach that guides executives through the thought process they use during problem solving, and Vento consultants deliver the solution within a guaranteed five-month time frame.

"With this acquisition, SPSS can move quickly into vertical applications, " said Jack Noonan, SPSS Inc. president and CEO. "Vento has significant domain expertise along with solid products and services that help people better understand their business. By incorporating these vertical `best practices' and data mining, organizations can extend traditional business intelligence solutions and get answers tailored to their specific business.

Vento Software delivers high-level, cross-functional applications that measure and analyze business performance according to KPIs. These applications incorporate domain expertise across a range of subjects and functions such as financial, human resources and customer relationship management. As a result, these indicators give business executives a strategic view of what has happened in their organization and how well they are executing their business strategy.

Bob Moran, vice president of decision support research with the Aberdeen Group observed, "Behind every acquisition is a strategy. By acquiring Vento, SPSS is aiming to leverage its leading position and investment in data mining technology into the business performance management market. Through the power of data mining-driven prediction, the company will expand the practice of using known performance indicators into a new domain - 'knowable' performance indicators. This merging of the already known and the predictable will re-classify and greatly increase the value of key performance indicators."

For more information, visit http://www.spss.com.