IBM Acquires Xtify, A Mobile Messaging Company

IBM has announced the acquisition of Xtifty, a provider of mobile messaging tools that allows push notifications to reach customers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The company’s platform leverages a company’s CRM environment, business rules and other data to do targeted campaigns. It offers the capability to target campaigns with scheduled messages, according to the time zones, frequency and a host of other factors. Marketers can create messages on the platform with an HTML editor, use dynamic fields for personal messaging and manage badges for rewarding customers.

Xtify, founded in 2009, will become part of the IBM Smart Commerce group and will target chief marketing officers and the new ecosystem of digital marketing managers and developers.

IBM makes a lot of money from its smarter commerce group. It has made more than $3.5 billion in acquisitions since 2010.

Interestingly, Xtify will be delivered through SoftLayer, the infrastructure as a service provider it acquired last June.

IBM’s move shows the new focus that vendors are putting on marketing organizations. Mobile messaging and marketing is tied to this strategy. Companies like Salesforce are focusing much of their efforts on developing marketing strategies, seeing opportunity in the full transformation from traditional marketing techniques to full-digital marketing experiences.