Informatica Acquires AddressDoctor

Global Data is Hard to Do

Yesterday, Informatica announced their intent to acquire AddressDoctor. This acquisition is all about being able to handle global data quality in today’s market, but it has a surprising potential twist. Data quality vendors have been striving for a better global solution because so many of the large data quality projects contain global data. If your solution doesn’t handle global data, it often just won’t make the cut.

The interesting twist here is that both IBM and Dataflux leverage AddressDoctor for their handling of global address data. There are several other smaller vendors that do also - MelissaData, QAS, and Datanomic. Trillium Software technology is not impacted by this acquisition. They have been building in-house technology for years to support the parsing of global data and have leveraged their parent company’s acquisition Global Address to beef up the geocoding capability of the Trillium Software System.

Informatica has handed the competition a strong blow here. Where will these vendors go to get their global data quality? In the months to come, there will be challenges to face. Informatica, still busy with integrating the disparate parts of Evoke, Similarity and Identity Systems, will now have to integrate AddressDoctor. Other vendors like IBM, Dataflux, MelissaData, QAS and Datanomic may now have to figure out what to do for global data if Informatica decides not to renew partner agreements.

For more analysis on this topic, you can read Rob Karel's blog. Read how this Forrester analyst thinks the move is to limit the choices on MDM platforms.

To be on the safe side, I’d like to restate my opinions in this blog are my own. Even though I work for Harte-Hanks Trillium Software, my comments are my independent thoughts and not necessarily those of my employer.

Postal Validation for the Australia Post

One of the very basic functions you can offer as a data quality vendor is to validate data against the local postal services. With this validation, the postal service is saying that it has tested your software and it agrees that your product can effectively cleanse local data. The customer of said products then become eligible for postal discounts and save money when they mail to their customers. The US, Canada, and Australia have their own way of testing software to ensure results.
I took a look at the Australia Post web site to who was ON the latest AMAS (Address Matching Approval System) list and who was missing. It's interesting to note that, as of this posting, only two of the major enterprise software vendors (those in the Gartner Magic Quadrant 'leaders' section) now support AMAS.
According to the AMAS list, only Trillium Software and Business Objects (FirstLogic) support the Australian postal system with software certified by Australia Post.
Sure, a good data quality solution should have connectivity - it should integrate well with your systems. It should be fast, and it should support the business user as well as the technologist. It should have many other features that meet the needs of a global company. However, postal validation for global name and address data is basic. It helps the marketing department hit their targets, it helps the billing department's invoices reach the customer, and it keeps revenue flowing into an organization.