Farewell to Coremetrics and Web Analytics as you knew it

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Akin Arikan

For sale

Congratulations to our colleagues at Coremetrics who have been such an important part of the web analytics industry for the past decade.

Web analytics are a critical component of something bigger

In 2006, Unica’s acquisition of a web analytics vendor illustrated Unica’s long held vision that web analytics are critical to the marketing process and must be a core capability of the enterprise marketing suite.

In 2009, the viability of standalone web analytics as a marketplace for vendors really began to crumble when Adobe acquired Omniture with the goal of embedding analytics in the content creation process. “For Sale” signs were immediately placed in the windows of the remaining standalone vendors.

Now, IBM’s acquisition of Coremetrics follows suit as IBM folds Coremetrics into Websphere with the likely intention of making it part of the Websphere eCommerce technology stack.

With no major standalone contenders remaining in the market (WebTrends had signaled their interest in getting acquired) prospective web analytics buyers must evaluate the core competencies of the parent company in order to determine the best match for their current and future needs.

IBM does NOT appear to be making a play for a broader analytics offering

 According to IBM’s announcement:

“Upon closing, [Coremetrics] will become part of IBM’s application and integration middleware portfolio which provides the backbone of transaction processing on the Web and powers many of the world’s leading retail sites.”

At first glance it may seem that IBM has a larger analytics play in mind by pairing up Coremetrics with SPSS and Cognos.  The quote above from the announcement says however that Coremetrics is going to be placed somewhere else within IBM, namely in the “application and integration middleware portfolio”. That doesn’t seem to suggest a new strategy to build out a larger customer intelligence offering.

 We look forward to supporting our customer IBM

IBM is a large and valued Unica customer. Our relationship with IBM is based on a shared vision of Interactive Marketing and leverages most of the modules within the Unica Enterprise suite, including web analytics. The Unica team remains committed to supporting IBM in meeting its marketing vision.

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Akin Arikan

About Akin Arikan

I am the author of Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success. The book has been published by Wiley/Sybex in April 2008. At IBM, I work in the Enterprise Marketing Management product team with focus on IBM's digital analytics and marketing optimization solutions. These solutions combine some of the best capabilities from IBM Unica and Coremetrics.
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  • http://integrati.com.au Integrati Marketing Consulting

    Such massive consolidation in these existing players will need to new entrants such KISSMerics etc. who will change the way we think about online metrics.

    I see this as a natural move of part of the Enterprise Systems frameworks and maturation of an industry.

    We believe it means more opportunity for new players to enter in the web 3.0 metrics space.

    All in all very interesting all the same, thanks for sharing Unica!

    Integrati Marketing

  • Pingback: Thoughts on IBM’s acquisition of Coremetrics … | Web Analytics Demystified

  • http://andreas.com Andreas Ramos

    Others think the IBM acquisition makes Coremetrics into a viable competitor to Google Analytics. No, it takes Coremetrics out of the competition.

    We discussed the issue yesterday from the position “Why would IBM buy Core?” What’s in it for IBM? Answer: they will use it as a tool for their clients. IBM won’t bother much with marketing Core for additional clients: that is just a drop in IBM’s revenue ocean.

  • http://andreas.com Andreas Ramos

    See Roslyn Layton’s blog posting about IBM + Core. Roslyn was the Director of the SEM client agency within Coremetrics. She writes about the deal from an insider’s perspective.

    http://www.klean.dk/weblog/ibm-buys-coremetrics

  • http://MultichannelMetrics.com Akin

    Thank you for the comments and link, Andreas and Integrati!

    Was interesting to read Roslyn’s analysis also which finished on following paragraph:

    “Don’t expect anything to change overnight. These announcements may come fast, but the reality may take months or years to materialize. The Adobe acquisition of Omniture, the previous #1 web analytics provider, is a valid point. Adobe had the clever idea to sell its Flash and Dreamweaver products prebuilt with Omniture analytics, saving the costly and time consuming process of implementing tags on websites. That acquisition was 9 months ago. We are still waiting for the baby. ”

    P.S. Hey, I didn’t realize Roslyn moved to Denmark. Very cool.

  • http://blogs.webtrends.com/ Justin Kistner

    Good perspective here, Akin.

    Quick clarification, Webtrends did not signal an interest in getting acquired. Alex responded to a question that we get inquiries.

  • Ken

    The stand alone market started collapsing when WebSideStory/Visual Sciences was acquired by long time rival Omniture, and even then they talked about integrating with business analytics. it would be wise for IBM to bring it all together, but it sounds like they are just doing what’s good for their business and not whats good for the customer.

  • http://www.gartner.com Bill Gassman

    It is worth noting that IBM also bought Sterling Commerce, so has beefed up its offerings in the B2C and B2C space, along with analytics. At one level, the competition has been moved to the e-commerce platforms, where ATG, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle will be battling for the back-end business logic and content delivery. The other vendors have to beef up their analytics offering to remain competitive. Another angle is the buyer and operations staff of a e-commerce platform is usually different from the web analytics community, although some users are the same. IBM has little experience interacting with web analysts, and is a pretty big team for the Coremetrics team to educate. There are challenges that could overwhelm, or work out OK. Too soon to tell.

    The bright side is that Coremetrics did not have the brand awareness (or marketing budget) it needed or deserved, and can now fly the well recognized blue flag. I believe the market is more healthy because of the acquisition.

  • http://www.unica.com Akin Arikan

    Hi Bill, those additional thoughts on the buyer audience are very well taken! Also, my colleagues and I share your point of view on the relative size difference between the Coremetrics team and the IBM giant. I know that you have personal experience working at very large high tech companies and can probably relate based on that too.

    Will be interesting to see what ATG’s next move will be. Imagine they chose to acquire the last remaining standalone vendor. Buying web analytics then becomes a matter of deciding which business process you ultimately want to enhance: content creation (Omniture), eCommerce (IBM), or marketing (Unica).

  • K Smith

    Hmm??

    Any changes to your thoughts with Unica’s recent news? How will Unica and Core play together during and after bluewashing?

  • http://www.unica.com Akin

    Hi K, thank you for asking. Exciting times!

    Should be great and makes total sense for spreading the use of analytics and interactive marketing across all of marketing.

    The notable difference to point out is the group within IBM into which the two acquisitions were done. One is within the software solutions group (Unica) whereas the other was into the app and middleware integration group.

    Akin