IBM has completed its acquisition of StoredIQ, an Austin-based developer of analytics software for litigation and regulations. “Most CIOs and [general counsels] know they’re saving too much data, which drives up IT costs and increases legal risk,” Deidre Paknad, the IBM executive leading the StoredIQ integration, wrote in a Feb. 7 statement. “With IBM and StoredIQ, organizations can maximize the value of big data and more effectively meet growing legal and privacy duties while disposing of data debris to control both cost and risk.” In other words, pressures related to keeping all sorts of regulatory information on file—whether it’s archiving old forms, disposing of files in accordance with privacy policies, or e-discovery—continue to rise. Nor can executives on the legal or technological sides of the aisle avoid performing all those tasks; to do so would invite all sorts of regulatory scrutiny that nobody wants. The solution, at least according to IBM, is software that can analyze massive amounts of unstructured data, saving the necessary files for e-discovery while dumping anything that needs to be destroyed per regulations. IBM estimates that various individuals and organizations create some 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, with 90 percent of the world’s existing data generated in the past two years alone. While the costs associated with all that data are also skyrocketing, so is the opportunity—the term “Big Data” has become a buzzword, and IT vendors are rushing into the analytics space with solutions designed to store and crunch ever-larger datasets. In April 2012, IBM acquired Vivisimo, another data-wrangling firm that specialized in pulling information from a number of sources within an organization, regardless of format or location. At the time, IBM described Vivisimo’s assets as an ideal way to “automate the flow of data into business analytics applications, helping clients better understand consumer behavior, manage customer churn and network performance.” Between Vivisimo, StoredIQ, and more recent acquisitions such as Star Analytics, it’s clear that IBM is interested in giving its clients the ability to set up an efficient information-governance system in relatively short order.   Image: Juan Nel/Shutterstock.com