IBM today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire StoredIQ Inc., a privately held company based in Austin, Texas. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. StoredIQ will advance IBM's efforts to help clients derive value from big data and respond more efficiently to litigation and regulations, dispose of information that has outlived its purpose and lower data storage costs.

With this agreement, IBM adds to its prior investments in Information Lifecycle Governance. The addition of StoredIQ capabilities enables clients to find and use unstructured information of value, respond more efficiently to litigation and regulatory events and lower information costs as data ages.

IBM's Information Lifecycle Governance suite improves information economics by helping companies lower the total cost of managing data while increasing the value derived from it by:

• Eliminating unnecessary cost and risk with defensible disposal of unneeded data
• Enabling businesses to realize the full value of information as it ages
• Aligning cost to the value of information
• Reducing information risk by automating privacy, e-discovery, and regulatory policies

Adding StoredIQ to IBM's Information Lifecycle Governance suite gives organizations more effective governance of the vast majority of data, including efficient electronic discovery and its timely disposal, to eliminate unnecessary data that consumes infrastructure and elevates risk. As a result, business leaders can access and analyze big data to gain insights for better decision-making. Legal teams can mitigate risk by meeting e-discovery obligations more effectively. Also, IT departments can dispose of unnecessary data and align information cost to value to take out excess costs.

StoredIQ software provides scalable analysis and governance of disparate and distributed email as well as file shares and collaboration sites. This includes the ability to discover, analyze, monitor, retain, collect, de-duplicate and dispose of data. In addition, StoredIQ can rapidly analyze high volumes of unstructured data and automatically dispose of files and emails in compliance with regulatory requirements.

"CIOs and general counsels are overwhelmed by volumes of information that exceed their budgets and their capacity to meet legal requirements," said Deidre Paknad, vice president of Information Lifecycle Governance at IBM. "With this acquisition, IBM adds to its unique strengths as a provider able to help CIOs and attorneys rapidly drive out excess information cost and mitigate legal risks while improving information utility for the business."

"Together, IBM and StoredIQ can empower organizations to more efficiently use and govern their unstructured data to increase its value and eliminate unnecessary cost and risk," said Phil Myers , StoredIQ CEO. "IBM and StoredIQ are longstanding partners with existing integration between IBM's Information Lifecycle Governance suite and StoredIQ's active data management software."

Named a 2012 Cool Vendor by Gartner, StoredIQ has more than 120 customers worldwide, including global leaders in financial services, healthcare, government, manufacturing and other sectors. Other systems require months to index data and years to configure, install and address information governance. StoredIQ can be up and running in just hours, immediately helping clients drive out cost and risk.

IBM intends to incorporate StoredIQ into its Software Group and its Information Lifecycle Governance business. Building on prior acquisitions of PSS Systems in 2010 and Vivisimo in 2012, IBM adds to its strength in rapid discovery, effective governance and timely disposal of data.

The acquisition of StoredIQ is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.