Did ya hear: DM Deals and Alliances

IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire Arsenal Digital Solutions, a privately
held company based in Cary, NC. Financial terms were not disclosed. Upon completion of the acquisition, Arsenal will become part of the Business Continuity and Resiliency Services (BCRS) business unit in IBM Global Technology Services. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008. Arsenal delivers a comprehensive suite of information protection solutions. www.ibm.com

Noetix, a provider of software solutions that automatically generate BI content from enterprise applications, has announced partnerships with several large BI vendors, including Business Objects and JasperSoft. “These partnerships are part of our overall business strategy to solidify our place in the market,” said Jeff Kirk, head of strategic alliances for Noetix. www.noetix.com, www.businessobjects.com and www.jaspersoft.com

Netezza Corp., an analytic appliance market leader, announced the addition of a Compression Engine that doubles the performance of its enterprise-class streaming analytic appliance. Netezza has achieved this performance improvement through a patent-pending algorithm designed to increase performance while decreasing data footprint. This performance gain follows the company's recent announcement of Release 4 of its Netezza Performance Server appliance, which delivered a doubling of performance through software, with no increase in price, hardware footprint or power and cooling requirements. www.netezza.com

MicroStrategy, worldwide provider of business intelligence software, announced the availability of a license replacement program for customers and OEM partners of Cognos and Business Objects.  The MicroStrategy License Replacement program enables customers of Cognos and Business Objects to trade in their existing BI licenses for MicroStrategy licenses at little or no replacement cost.  www.microstrategy.com

Business Objects, a provider of business intelligence solutions, and SPSS, a worldwide
provider of predictive analytics software, announced the companies have entered into an original equipment manufacturer agreement in which Business Objects will offer its customers the ability to use SPSS predictive analytics data mining technology as part of the market-leading BusinessObjects XI platform. Users of BusinessObjects XI with predictive analytics data mining technology will be able to leverage business predictions to make more informed decisions. www.spss.com and www.businessobjects.com

Aternity, which provides what it calls frontline performance intelligence for Global 1000 enterprises, has announced that Oracle and Israel’s Chief Scientist, Eli Opper, are investing in a joint project with Aternity. The new venture is part of an agreement signed by Oracle and the Israeli government to increase support for start-up companies and independent software vendors. www.aternity.com

Overall hiring in IT should remain solid in the first quarter of the year and database management professionals are among the most in demand, according to the Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report. According to the report, 13 percent of CIOs plan to add information technology (IT) staff and three percent anticipate personnel reductions in the first quarter of 2008 The net 10 percent hiring increase compares with a net 12 percent increase projected last quarter. The majority of respondents, 82 percent, foresee no change in their staffing activity in the next three months. www.rht.com

SSH Communications Security Corp., a provider of enterprise security solutions and end-to-end communications security, and the original developer of the Secure Shell protocol, has announced that it has joined the PCI Security Standards Council as a new participating organization. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requires merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit customer payment card data to adhere to information security controls and processes that ensure data integrity.  As a participating organization, SSH Communications Security will now have access to the latest payment card security standards from the Council, be able to provide feedback on the standards. www.ssh.com

Tidal Software, a provider of application scheduling and performance management software, has announced that Albany International Corp., a leading supplier of custom-designed engineered fabrics essential to paper and paperboard production, is deploying Tidal solutions to assist in the rollout and to automate the ongoing operation of its new worldwide implementation of SAP. Albany is consolidating all worldwide data center operations - serving over 6,000 employees across 40 sites in the Americas, Europe, and Pacific - onto a global implementation of SAP's ERP solution. www.tidalsoftware.com

Sun Microsystems showcased a milestone demonstration at Gartner's recent Data Center Conference, running OpenSolaris code base on an IBM mainframe. This illustrates the mainframe's ability to virtualize the data center with key operating environments such as Sun Microsystems Solaris, the vendor said. www.sun.com

Trillium Software, a business of Harte-Hanks, Inc. and leading enabler of Total Data Quality solutions, announced the availability of its MDM Readiness Kit to assist enterprises with the design and implementation of their data quality and data governance resources for master data management (MDM) initiatives.  This complimentary resource serves as a guide for Global 2000 organizations that are interested in preparing and executing a successful MDM initiative. www.trilliumsoftware.com