IBM to Acquire Xtify

IBM today announced the acquisition of Xtify, a provider of cloud-based mobile messaging tools that help organizations improve mobile sales, drive in-store traffic, and engage customers with personalized offers. Financial terms were disclosed.

The acquisition will help extend IBM's mobile capabilities to digital marketers across all industries, ranging from retail to citizen engagement in the public sector, through cloud-based services.

Xtify will expand IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, providing campaign creation, personalized content, dynamic real-time segmentation, and analytics for all mobile devices and browsers. The technology is designed to help companies engage, convert, and retain mobile application users and site visitors. Xtify's cloud-based campaign management platform notifies mobile consumers when new content and promotions are available.

Additionally, a new IBM Institute for Business Value study released today confirms that leading organizations have seen clear benefits in their mobile investments to date: 73 percent have experienced measurable results from their mobile initiatives versus 34 percent of all other companies in the study. Further, 81 percent stated that mobile capabilities are fundamentally changing the way their organizations do business.

Sephora, Disney Stores, The Tribune Group, and 20th Century Fox are among other clients are using Xtify's push notifications delivered via mobile apps or sites to increase sales opportunities while fostering brand loyalty.

"The premise is simple: Mobile content and promotional offers are far more useful when delivered directly to consumers at the right time. Relevant and actionable offers are key to mobile marketing success," said Xtify CEO Josh Rochlin, in a statement. "Xtify's mobile messaging capability combined with IBM's analytics and cloud infrastructure will provide marketers with global reach and an arsenal of rich content to influence and inform increasingly mobile consumers."

Xtify is among the most recent investments that IBM plans to run on its SoftLayer cloud infrastructure that operates in 140 countries. IBM has invested more than $6 billion in cloud-related acquisitions, including SoftLayer, which provides a cloud "on-ramp" to help clients deploy mobile capabilities with the security, privacy, and reliability of private clouds and the economy, flexibility, and speed of a public cloud.

"With the increase of mobile devices, organizations across all industries are anxious to develop a mobile approach to engage their customers," said Kevin Bishop, IBM's vice president for digital marketing, in a statement. "The acquisition of Xtify provides new ways for our clients to foster a direct, one-to-one communication channel with their customers."

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