SAP is looking to expand its predictive analytics offering after announcing plans to acquire predictive analytics vendor KXEN for an undisclosed amount.
The deal will see KXEN integrate its technology with SAP’s on-premises enterprise resource planning applications, SaaS portfolio and HANA in-memory database in efforts to compete against other vendors in what it says is a $2 bn (£1.2bn) market for Big Data services.
The predictive technology could also be used to enhance the value of core SAP applications for managing operations, customer relationships, supply chains, risk and fraud.
SAP, which recently released its latest business intelligence (BI) solutions, said the deal would help companies to better control big data by automating key modelling and analytical tasks and enabling faster deployment.
Forrester analyst Boris Evelson said the deal represents another step from SAP towards agile business intelligence services.
In a blog post, he said: "It’s not a major direction change for SAP, which has had a long history of providing predictive analytics functionality integrated with the rest of the BOBJ and BW technologies. For years, SAP OEMed SPSS as its predictive solution of choice."
John Ball, CEO at KXEN, said: "Our customers were increasingly asking us to focus on predictive applications that could be easily consumed by the business, both in the cloud and on premise. The real-time big data capabilities of SAP HANA make it the ideal platform to deliver on this vision."
The KXEN acquisition is expected to close by the end of this year.
