Data Warehouse Edition is best described as an umbrella brand for IBM’s loosely coupled BI technologies. The next release of the product, which is slated for delivery the second quarter, will for the first time provide a much tighter packaging of its: DB2 relational database system; Warehouse Manager extract, transform and load tool; CubeViews metadata bridge technology; Information Integrator federated query software; Intelligent Miner data mining tool; and OfficeConnect, a GUI process management tool for transferring and presenting BI data in Excel spreadsheets.

Previously, integration between these tools and technologies was achieved mainly through expensive post-implementation services.

In a statement Karen Parrish, vice president of worldwide BI solutions at IBM, said the fully integrated Data Warehouse Edition platform will deliver all the functionality needed to build a [data] warehouse from scratch. She also said the offering will come with a more attractive price-point. She said IBM will provide complementary consulting and implementation services and partner technology offerings around its BI stack.

IBM also unveiled plans to deliver several vertically focused BI offerings this year. The applications are likely to target the healthcare, retail, financial services, telecommunications, and law enforcement sectors.

Longer term, IBM’s goal is to draw its BI portfolio closer to its other data management technologies, such as content management, search and text mining, as part of an overarching information management strategy. But IBM admits that the completion of this goal is still far on the horizon.

Arguably IBM’s BI strategy has up to now been largely about juggling multiple technology partnerships and using its vast consulting resources to piece together custom or end-to-end BI systems. But many industry observers agree that in order for IBM to become a serious player, it would need a major acquisition.

Rumors emerged late last year that IBM was seriously eyeing one of the big four BI vendors – Business Objects SA, Cognos Inc, MicroStrategy Inc, or Hyperion Solutions Corp – as a possible acquisition target. All these vendors have close alliances with IBM.

As it turned out, the only major BI acquisition IBM made in 2004 was Alphablox Inc, a small analytics development tool vendor. At the time IBM, and many of its closest BI partners, were quick to stress that the buy would not upset any existing relationships. This year IBM also bought Las Vegas-based analytic profiling and identify management firm Systems R&D.

Other industry observers however stress that IBM’s BI strengths lie in providing back-end infrastructure, leaving specialized BI tool and application partners to round out functionality at the front-end.