IDC Says Ascential Software Could 'Reorient the Way We Think About Data Integration'
Tuesday September 9, 11:09 am ET
Premier Analyst Firm Cites Ascential QualityStage's Unique and Scientific Approach To Data Integrity for Important Business Applications
WESTBORO, Mass., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ascential Software Corporation (Nasdaq: ASCL - News), the enterprise data integration leader, today announced that one of the industry's most respected IT analyst firms has recognized Ascential QualityStage(TM), the company's data quality and cleansing solution, for delivering a unique data matching capability that allows companies to execute successful strategic initiatives such as ERP, CRM, direct marketing campaigns and mergers with better results. In a new report, IDC commends Ascential Software's commitment to a class of technology that the research firm believes will revolutionize the way complex IT problems are approached. Ascential QualityStage is available separately or as a component of the Ascential(TM) Enterprise Integration Suite.
Data quality is a growing challenge as data volume expands exponentially and spreads across more databases and systems, according to IDC analysts Kathleen and Stephen Hendrick in their new report, "Ascential Introduces QualityStage." "A clear picture of a customer, product, or buying trend can be practically impossible to ascertain," the analysts state. "This is a significant problem."
Specifically, Ascential QualityStage surpasses all competitors in the ability to improve data quality by consolidating customer files and other records scattered across multiple enterprise systems, according to IDC. Ascential QualityStage is "one of the few products that has the ability to completely reorient the way we think about data integration," IDC says in the report.
Ascential QualityStage has continued to evolve to meet the changing needs of the industry, according to the report. "Its ability to successfully provide data investigation, standardization, matching, and survivorship makes it a strong product to address a multitude of needs, from data integration to CRM. Ascential QualityStage delivers a scientifically justified methodology, producing an audit trail that can be easily validated and verified by organizations."
Ascential Software's Unique Approach to Data Quality
The report zeroes in on the key advantage of Ascential QualityStage, its probabilistic matching approach. "While the word probability can make IS managers run screaming from the room, IDC believes QualityStage may well be the only justifiable way to address sophisticated matching problems," states the report.
Competing offerings use a decision table methodology governed by vendor- set rules. This technique compromises completeness and accuracy for the sake of manageability, according to IDC. "This contrasts with Ascential QualityStage, which doesn't stagger under the weight of multiway matches or shy away from adding criteria that generally results in better match results than other approaches," says IDC.
The specific characteristics that IDC says differentiate QualityStage from
other competitive offerings include:
1. Frequency analysis, referring to how often a value appears in a field.
For example, male or female would appear often in a gender field. A
particular string would appear rarely in a tax ID field.
2. Numeric match weight, versus the imprecise A-F matching scale
competitors use.
3. Significance, referring to QualityStage's ability to let companies
assign a higher value to a matching field that is more pivotal in the
matching process.
Ascential Software estimates that, conservatively, it can improve match accuracy by two to five percent over competing approaches - a huge difference for a company trying to clean up its records. "The reason that slight increases in matching accuracy matter is that each unmatched record has the potential to taint the integrity of any records to which it should have been directly matched, as well as any records that are subsequently matched to these records," says IDC. "Therefore, since there can be instances where even one unmatched record is responsible for propagating significant errors, a small increase in methodological matching accuracy can drive major positive benefits."
Ascential QualityStage will become increasingly valuable as companies grapple with more data. "In fact, the unique attribute of Ascential QualityStage that truly sets it apart is its increasing ability to orchestrate better matches as the complexity of data increases," the IDC report states. "While we understand that this statement runs contrary to the behavior of virtually every other IT experience, remember that our experience in IT systems to date and our frame of reference has only been with deterministic systems. Ascential QualityStage is one of the first and one of the few products that has the ability to completely reorient the way we think about data integration."
Ascential QualityStage is a key component of the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite, which combines Ascential Software's industry-leading solutions for data profiling, data quality and data transformation on a shared platform of software services for unlimited scalability through parallel processing, management of meta data, any-to-any connectivity and real-time data integration.
"IDC's evaluation of our product mirrors the experience of our customers, including Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Sprint and Premera Blue Cross, who have used Ascential QualityStage and its predecessor products to dramatically improve the quality of their data," said Bob Zurek, Ascential Software vice president of advanced technology. "Ascential QualityStage ensures that strategic business systems contain accurate, complete information on which to base better business decisions. And as IDC suggests, Ascential QualityStage will continue to emerge as the clear choice in data quality as the volume of data companies contend with continues to increase."
To view the full report, please visit ascential.com .
About Ascential Software
Ascential Software Corporation is the leading provider of enterprise data integration solutions to organizations worldwide. Customers use the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite to integrate and leverage data across all strategic analytic and enterprise applications with confidence in the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of critical information. Ascential Software's powerful data profiling, data quality, data transformation, parallel processing, meta data and connectivity solutions enable customers to reduce total cost of ownership and increase return on IT investment. Headquartered in Westboro, Mass., Ascential Software has offices worldwide and supports more than 2,200 customers in such industries as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, consumer goods, retail, and government. More information on Ascential Software can be found on the Web at www.ascential.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, and these statements are subject to important factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this release address a variety of subjects including, for example, the functionality, characteristics, quality and performance capabilities of Ascential Software's products and technology; results achievable and benefits attainable through deployment of Ascential Software's products; anticipated innovation and product development; customer requirements and expectations as well as benefits to customers from Ascential Software's products and services; impact of the combination of Ascential Software products with third party products; impact on execution of successful strategic initiatives; expansion and dispersion of data and the importance of data quality; extent of improvements in accuracy by using Ascential Software's products; increasing customer preference for Ascential QualityStage; and reduction of cost of ownership by customers and return on IT investment. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: the ability of Ascential Software to expand its market share; growth rates for the enterprise data integration software market; general business conditions in the software industry, the technology sector, and in the domestic and international economies; rapid technological change in the markets served by Ascential Software; dependence on international operations; global and geopolitical instability; and difficulties that Ascential Software may experience integrating technologies, operations and personnel of completed or future acquisitions. For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements, please refer to the filings made by Ascential Software with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Ascential Software disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements made herein to reflect any change in Ascential Software's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which such statements are based.
Ascential and Ascential QualityStage are trademarks of Ascential Software Corporation or its affiliates and may be registered in the United States or other jurisdictions. Other marks are the property of the owners of those marks.
Contact:
Chas Kielt Jeff Aubin
Ascential Software Corporation Beaupre & Co. Public Relations, Inc.
(508) 366-3888, ext. 3256 (603) 559-5838
chas.kielt@ascential.com jaubin@beaupre.com
Source: Ascential Software Corporation |
