What Is The Best Master Data
Management Software Right Now?
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T
o begin answering your question, let’s discuss
the vendor landscape. There are four major ven-
dors in this area:
• Informatica MDM (formerly Siperian).
• IBM:
- InfoSphere MDM Server (formerly DWL
and Trigo).
- Initiate Master Data Service (formerly
Initiate).
• Oracle:
- Customer, Product, Supplier, and Site
Hubs (mix of Oracle and Siebel).
- Data Relationship Management (for
merly Hyperion).
• SAP NetWeaver MDM.
B
eyond those four, there are several “niche”
vendors:
• SAS DataFlux.
• D&B Purisma.
• TIBCO MDM.
• Black Watch Data.
• Talend MDM.
A
s far as the “best” and “easiest to implement,”
well that depends on many factors, including
your business needs and existing IT landscape.
A
ccording to Forrester, Siperian (now Infor-
matica) is the leader, followed by Initiate (now
IBM), and IBM (still IBM)... More on this in a
bit.
G
artner top-right quadrant has Informatica
(formerly Siperian) as the top “visionary”,
with Oracle and IBM (MDM Server) at the
top in “execution.”
I
n my opinion, Informatica is the most ho-
mogeneous/integrated solution (Informatica
was already the substrate for Siperian) and
offers a true multi-domain platform, whereas
IBM and Oracle each sell separate “hubs.” It
combines Informatica’s best-of-breed Data
Quality and Data Integration components
into a holistic Data Management platform.
It is more “configure” than “code”; therefore,
I would offer that Informatica is somewhat
easier to implement.
H
owever, the IBM MDM Server is a very ro-
bust platform and comes with something like
800+ out-of-the-box services and processes
that are pre-configured against its respective
hub offerings. It also delivers the most so-
phisticated and proven services framework of
the major vendors. But why did they acquire
Initiate, and what is the integration roadmap
for their two MDM offerings? Not to worry
though, if anyone can figure out how to com-
bine both solutions the best way possible, it is
IBM.
I
t is important to understand that the stra-
tegic significance, implementation effort, and
total cost of ownership of these solutions are
more congruent to an ERP application than
with an ETL tool (which is the comparison
that is often—mistakenly—drawn), and the
justification and evaluation process should be
given similar cogitation.
T
he average sticker price for a single domain
(say Customer) from one of the top four ven-
dors is in the area of $0.5M–$1.5M (depend-
ing on the unique record count). The imple-
mentation is typically 1:1 with the license cost.
S
o, do they “justify the price tag?” Again,
that depends on many factors, but most of our
(3sage Consulting) MDM Assessments have
uncovered significant ROI for our customers
through substantial gains in operational ef-
ficiency, as well as increased revenue through
improved data quality, higher customer
satisfaction, deeper insight into previously
unknown relationships (for marketing and
segmentation), and—in some cases—the abil-
ity to monetize and productize their data.
I
n addition, MDM solutions (and ultimately,
canonical models) contribute to a much
higher rate of success for SOA initiatives.
