IBM Agrees to Buy Ascential

IBM Corp. on Monday said it had agreed to buy Ascential Software Corp. for $1.1 billion, seeking to narrow the gap with rival Oracle Corp. in the database business.

IBM said the acquisition would complement its information-integration business, a unit that produced triple-digit growth in 2004, and vault it into the No. 1 position in this software niche.

Ascential, of Westboro, Mass., provides software that helps companies pull together data from different computer systems and analyze them. Retailers are snapping up its software so they can quickly analyze trends seen from different store systems.

The IBM deal values Ascential at $18.50 a share, an 18% premium to its closing stock price Friday.

The acquisition, which is expected to close in the second quarter, is subject to approval by Ascential shareholders and regulatory authorities.

Ascential shares rose $2.59 to $18.29 on Nasdaq. Shares of Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM rose 39 cents to $91.90 on the New York Stock Exchange.