Tibco’s Orchestra acquisition will mean ‘faster IT integration’

Tibco’s acquisition of Orchestra Networks will provide large businesses with a one-stop shop for integrating multiple IT systems and performing sophisticated data analytics, the companies have said.

Palo Alto-based Tibco announced its acquisition of Paris-based Orchestra Networks on 4 December. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Orchestra Networks, a private company founded in Paris in 2000, supplies around 200 large companies, including banks, financial services companies and manufacturers, with its EBX master data management software that allows them to manage and aggregate data held in different computer systems.

The company, which has revenues of over €20m, will operate as a standalone unit within Tibco. Christophe Barriolade, co-founder and CEO of Orchestra, will run the EBX business, reporting to chief operating officer (COO) Matt Quinn.

Mark Palmer, senior vice-president and general manager of analytics at Tibco, said Orchestra Networks’ EBX software was a strategically important addition to Tibco’s data analytics and integration technology.

“You can’t do good analytics unless you have trusted, organised, checked and governed data,” he said. “EBX is a tool that turns a data swamp into data assets. So it is extremely strategic.”

Barriolade said it had been working closely with Tibco for the past five years and had a significant number of customers in common. He described the two companies as a good strategic fit. “From a strategic standpoint it made total sense, it’s very complementary. That is what really drove the discussion towards an acquisition,” he said. Orchestra will continue to supply Tibco EBX software to companies that use analytics technology from a range of suppliers, including IBM or Tableau, a data visualisation specialist. EBX will remain a standalone product, capable of integrating with any software, but over time, Tibco and Orchestra will integrate EBX more closely with Tibco’s data analytics software, Spotfire. “That is the overall idea: stay a pure-play technology, but integrate better and better with the Tibco platform,” said Barriolade. Palmer said Orchestra Networks’ EBX software was a good fit with Tibco’s data virtualisation technology, which it acquired when it bought Composite Software in October 2017.