BUSINESS BRIEFING / COMPUTERS
Times Staff and Wire Reports
IBM Corp. is bulking up its most profitable division with a $1.2-billion acquisition of business software provider SPSS Inc.
The all-cash deal represents a 42% premium over Chicago-based SPSS’ Monday closing price of $35.09.
SPSS’ technology is used to comb through data to predict things such as how a customer will respond to a particular sales pitch, or where police should be deployed.
