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Rogue-Visual Numerics merger makes analytic sense
Tony Baer, Madan Sheina
Rogue-Visual Numerics merger makes analytic sense
Venture-backed Rogue Software has snapped up advanced data analytics and visualisation specialist Visual Numerics for an undisclosed sum to create, what it claims to be, the market's biggest provider of embeddable analytic software components. The acquisition marks the growing importance of making embedded systems smarter by venturing beyond ingraining logic or mathematic algorithms to baking in higher-level analytics that could, in essence, miniaturize the types of capabilities currently available in high-end statistical processing packages.The acquisition of Visual Numerics reflects market demand for smarter, more autonomous embedded systems
Rogue Wave's tools have always been aimed at the 'invisible' side of software development - that is, development of embedded systems that more often than not are developed in C++ rather than more modern counterparts C# or Java. Although more difficult to code than C# or Java, C++ enables developers more precise control over memory management to make high-performance, low-latency applications possible. Consequently, today, C++ is reserved for highly specialized high-performance applications that have traditionally been outside corporate development mainstream. Rogue Wave supplies IDEs and specialized libraries for functions such as database access and algorithmic formula-based number crunching. As such, Visual Numerics adds to Rogue Wave's pallet by providing even more specialized libraries for numerical analysis. Admittedly, these capabilities might be too esoteric for most enterprise IT organizations. However, these libraries do make it possible to embed the types of advanced statistical and analytic processing that are increasingly being consumed by everyday business intelligence (BI) problems. For example, they support techniques such as Monte Carlo regression analysis that can be used to dissect business risk, optimize semiconductor fabrication, or analyze supply-chain performance. The significance of Rogue Wave's Visual Numerics acquisition is in providing customers the ability to embed some of the intelligence traditionally associated with higher end statistical processing software tools such as those available from the likes of SAS Institute. Not surprisingly, the primary market for Rogue Wave's products hasn't been the enterprise. Rather, it has been software vendors that embed the libraries such as Actuate for business reporting, BMC for IT service management (ITSM), or MSC Software for sophisticated CAD-CAM and mechanical engineering programs. Rogue Wave also sells extensively to financial services firms, which have used its libraries and C++ IDE for developing risk management and algorithmic trading programs, where the ability to process highly complex calculations in realtime is essential. It's getting more and more likely that technology such as Visual Numeric's technology is ending up in packaged software under the hood. For instance, Visual Numerics already has OEM deals with SAP (for improving text search) and Teradata (embeds analytics into its database engine as user-defined functions). Visual Numerics' competitive differentiator is its cross-platform support
Visual Numerics competes with the likes of larger advanced analytics providers such as SAS and SPSS, as well as some of the easier to embed analytic application products such as KXEN or Matlab - though offering a much broader array of algorithms. What's different about the company, however, is that its software algorithms are more embeddable (thanks to its smaller footprint), more cross-platform and can be deployed without the overhead of a complete application. Visual Numerics is of course hoping that this merger will allow it to push its embeddable analytic components into the hands of more corporate developers. The company already has the advantage of offering cross-platform analytics - one of its key value propositions is supporting both Java and .NET environments. However, what's not clear is whether the focus on embedding, rather than providing a self-contained application, will make analytics truly pervasive. It's true that the market for advanced analytics has been growing of late and distributed computing is becoming more popular. But implementing the two is still a complex proposition for most companies. Moreover, Visual Numerics has up to now been largely focused on scientific research - things like oil and gas, space exploration, pollution, weather forecasting, etc - though it is now trying to be more business focused. The company has already shown a keen interest in building custom algorithms and visualization software for product supply optimization, portfolio analysis, visualization, forecasting, network traffic and other similar high-performance analytic scenarios that could expand its reach to new markets.
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