Informatica 4931309 223001308 2008-07-02T03:16:13Z 66.30.32.81 /* Competition */ {{Infobox_Company | company_name = Informatica Corp.| company_logo = [[Image:informatica logo.gif|Informatica logo]]| company_type = [[Public company|Public]] {{NASDAQ|INFA}}| ([[NASDAQ]]: '''[http://quotes.nasdaq.com/asp/SummaryQuote.asp?symbol=INFA&selected=INFA INFA]''')| company_slogan = | foundation = [[1993]]| location = [[Redwood City, California]], [[United States]]| key_people = [[Sohaib Abbasi]], Chairman & [[CEO]]| num_employees = 1300+<ref>[http://www.informatica.com/company/investors/Pages/index.aspx Informatica Investor Relations],[[2008-06-23]]</ref>| industry = [[Computer software]]| products = [[Data management]]| homepage = [http://www.informatica.com www.informatica.com]| }} {{dablink|This article is about US-based Informatica Corporation. For the unrelated information security consulting and privacy compliance firm, see [[Informatica Security]].}} '''Informatica Corporation''' provides [[data integration]] [[software]] and services for various businesses, industries and government organizations, including telecommunications, health care, insurance, and financial services. The products of the company support various [[enterprise software|enterprise-wide]] data integration and data quality solutions including [[data warehousing]], [[data migration]], [[data consolidation]], [[data synchronization]], [[data governance]], [[master data management]], and cross-enterprise [[data integration]]. ==History== Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA) was founded in 1993 in [[Silicon Valley]] by Indian Entrepreneurs [[Gaurav Dhillon]] and [[Diaz Nesamoney]]. It was based on the idea that data warehouses should not be "handcoded", but instead can be built more efficiently with graphical tools. Acquisitions * Influence Software, an analytics applications company in 1999. Informatica abandoned this line of business in 2002. * Zimba Software, a mobile business intelligence company in 2000. For several years, Informatica tried in vain to compete directly against industry heavyweights like [[Business Objects (company)|Business Objects]] and [[Cognos]] before deprioritizing its Business Intelligence strategy in 2004 and folding it into PowerCenter Advanced Edition. * Striva, maker of standards-based mainframe connectivity software in 2003. This software continues to exist as Informatica PowerExchange. * Similarity Systems, maker of data quality products in 2006. * Itemfield, maker of data mapping and transformation technology in 2007. * Identity Systems, an identity resolution technology company in 2008. ==Major products== *Informatica PowerCenter Standard Edition - used as a traditional [[Extract, transform, load]] (ETL) tool or [[Extract, Load, Transform]] tool (ELT). *Informatica PowerCenter Advanced Edition which includes Standard Edition plus additional capabilities: **Data Analyzer (Reporting tool) **Metadata Manager (Impact analysis and metadata reporting) *Informatica PowerExchange *Informatica Data Explorer *Informatica Data Quality *Informatica Complex Data Exchange - for extracting and transforming data from unstructured and semi-structured documents like pdf, excel, doc, etc. *Informatica PowerChannel - for secure and encrypted data transfer over WAN ==Informatica PowerCenter== PowerCenter 8.5 is the company's flagship product. The advanced edition includes Metadata Manager (formerly SuperGlue), Data Analyzer (formerly PowerAnalyzer), Data Profiler, and other options. New features in PowerCenter 8.5 include Grid Computing support for scalability, Java Custom Transformation Support, HTTP Transformation Support, High Availability, Push Down Optimization (ETL Architecture), Enhanced [[web services]] to leverage [[service oriented architecture]] or event based architecture using [[SOAP]], Tibco, MQSeries, or other messages in Batch and Real Time, as well as Mapping Template Creation support through [[Microsoft]] Visio. It also comes with adapters to various data source systems ranging from [[RDBMS]] to [[Message-oriented middleware]]'s to Web Services to Applications. Informatica PowerCenter, via Informatica PowerExchange, connects to Mainframe systems to provide access data in various formats such as VSAM, IMS, IDMS, ADABAS etc. through Data Maps that act as SQL Views. PowerExchange also provides Change Data Capture and Real Time support from Mainframe, SQL Server, and Oracle database sources. Informatica PowerCenter is available to run on Windows, various UNIX platforms, and Mainframe. PowerCenter represents a paradigm shift in programming since it is a functional programming (such as XSLT for XML) tool instead of an iterative one (such as PL/SQL or Java). With Informatica, construction effort of ETL logic for Data Warehousing or Data Integration shrinks to less than half of traditional iterative languages and tools. ==Competition== Informatica labels itself as a narrowly focused "best of breed" product in the Data Integration software market. Its direct competition in [[ETL]] space is [[Datastage]] (recently acquired by [[IBM]]), [[Ab Initio]] software and Business Object's Data Integrator. It also directly competes with ETL tools from database vendors such as [[SQL Server Integration Services]] and [[Data Transformation Services]]; startups like [[Syncsort]] [[DMExpress]], [http://www.expressor-software.com expressor software], Embarcadero, and [[Sunopsis]]; as well as indirect competitors Enterprise Application Integration, Enterprise Service Bus and Application Server vendors like [[BEA Systems]], [[TIBCO]] and [[WebMethods]]. ==Notes== {{reflist}} ==External links== * [http://www.informatica.com Informatica website] [[Category:Business software]] [[Category:ETL tools]] [[Category:Software companies of the United States]] [[Category:Computer companies of the United States]]