MDM War

A market research firm estimates the market size of MDM related products to peak $ 1 billion by end of 2008. Though MDM is relatively a new zone of investment for most of the organizations, the immense value behind such a venture has been pro-actively noticed. Some of the companies which have their MDM product suite are

• SAP - SAP Netweaver MDM
  
• Kalido - Kalido MDM
  
• IBM - IBM MDM (WPC, WCC)

• Microsoft- Stratature
  
• Oracle - Universal Customer Master.

One common aspect that could be found in these line of products are that most of them have been acquired. SAP launched its first MDM set of products in 2002 and had to quickly withdraw because of operational issues. Then it acquired A2i in 2004 and then repackaged A2i's product as its own. IBM acquired DWL Inc, to get hold of PIM (Product Information Management) and CDI (Customer Data Integration). Microsoft acquired Stratature and Oracle (with Customer Data Hub's not-so-good success) gained inroads into Siebel's UCM, post-acquisition.

These acquisitions have also been in line with the product suite that the companies already own. Oracle's merger with Siebel clearly will put itself on top, in the CRM and Customer Data Management space, while SAP can leverage its ERP customer base to bundle the MDM cake.

In the following weeks, I shall be understanding each of the tools in detail to find out which one has the killer technology and experience to be crowned the "MDM Maharaja". Or will they be all a bunch of Sultans aiming to just take a share of the $1 billion jewel?