SAP Acquires KXEN

SAP yesterday announced plans to acquire KXEN, a provider of predictive analytics technology for line-of-business users and analysts. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

KXEN technology extends predictive analytics tools beyond data scientists to line-of-business users and analysts in the workplace by automating key modeling and analytical tasks and enabling faster deployment and adoption.

KXEN is intended to complement existing advanced analytics from SAP, including SAP Predictive Analysis software. Additionally, the company plans to incorporate KXEN technology into cloud and on-premise SAP applications built on SAP HANA, including the SAP Fraud Management analytic application, SAP Smart Meter Analytics software, and the SAP 360 Customer solution.

The acquisition is expected to allow SAP to introduce new predictive capabilities to the portfolio of solutions for more than 25 industries, particularly data-intensive vertical industries such as telecommunications, retail, consumer products, manufacturing, and financial services.

"The compelling combination of KXEN with market-leading analytics and business intelligence solutions from SAP intends to deliver the capability organizations need to innovate for growth in high-volume data environments," said Michael Reh, executive vice president of business information technology, products and innovation at SAP, in a statement. "Just as SAP is revolutionizing visualization, KXEN will allow us to bring predictive analytics to more business users, enabling easier-to-adopt solutions and the delivery of greater value via SAP solutions."

With headquarters in San Francisco and major operating locations in& Paris and London, KXEN provides predictive analytic tools and applications that automate the end-to-end modeling process, helping to deliver highly accurate and robust predictive models. Its flagship product is InfiniteInsight.

"We are excited to integrate our leading predictive analytics capabilities with market-leading enterprise BI and agile visualization platforms from SAP, which we expect will result in unmatched analytics breadth and depth in the marketplace," said John Ball, CEO of KXEN, in a statement. "Our customers were increasingly asking us to focus on predictive applications that could be easily consumed by the business, both in the cloud and on premise. The real-time big data capabilities of SAP HANA make it the ideal platform to deliver on this vision."

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