Datawatch Buys Visual Analysis Provider Panopticon For $31.4 million

Chelmsford, MA-based data management software developer Datawatch plans to extend the capabilities of Swedish visual data analytics provider Panopticon's real-time visualization tools beyond structured data to unstructured and semi-structured data, after acquiring the vendor in a deal worth approximately $31.4 million.

Under the deal, which remains subject to approval stockholders, Datawatch will integrate Panopticon's real-time visualization software into its Datawatch Information Optimization Platform (IOP) that is used by institutions across the capital markets, healthcare and manufacturing industries to extract value from structured, unstructured, and semi-structured content such as reports, PDFs, and electronic data interchange streams.

"We're not prepared to give specific details around the long-term R&D plan, but the goal is to bring two technology stacks together so that if you're in a visual analysis app and you want to draw in unstructured information, you will be able to call up the Datawatch environment and map that directly," says Ben Plummer, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of strategic alliances at Datawatch. "Likewise, if you're using our technology, you would be able to bring Panopticon directly up and work with that."

Previously, Datawatch supported a lightweight dashboard on its IOP platform to provide visual analysis, but frequently ran into situations where customers wanted a more detailed visual presentation of the information, Plummer says. "As data visualization has now reached a certain stage of maturity, it made more sense for us to make a strategic acquisition rather than start our own internal development effort," he says.

Although Panopticon has traditionally delivered data visualization software around structured data in partnership with vendors such as Thomson Reuters, SAP, Deloitte, Accenture and QlikTech, Datawatch has focused on the "data variety" component of Big Data -- or, in other words, the ability to extract value from any data in an organization, regardless of structure, Plummer says. "Most products do a nice job of querying structural relational data... but our focus is on exploiting analytics to unlock unstructured data sources. In that sense, the Panopticon acquisition changes the paradigm for us," he adds.

Despite this, Plummer says Panopticon will also continue to operate in the real-time structured space, and that existing customers should not be impacted by the acquisition.

Datawatch will also continue to support real-time ticker feeds, but is looking to extend Panopticon's coverage to unstructured data, as well as other industries beyond the financial markets, such as healthcare, to enable customers in those sectors to interrogate information in real time as opposed to just presenting data visually.

"Panopticon's primary customers are in the financial services industry where real-time information is needed for trading and risk. But we've got inroads in different industries, so we can broaden the spectrum, and deliver the ability to do data visualization against any type of data, regardless of structure," Plummer adds.