Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about IBM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We recently published three Ventana Research 2023 Data Platforms Value Indexes, an assessment of technology vendors and products that provide individual and combined analytic and operational data platform support. At Ventana Research, we continue to believe that, for most use-cases, there is a clear choice for analytic or operational data platforms for any use in your organization. We developed three technology assessment and buyers’ guides to focus on overall Data Platform requirements as well as specific Analytic Data Platforms and Operational Data Platforms use-cases.

In all of our Value Indexes, we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal and vendor selection process. For each of the Value Indexes, we evaluated IBM and other vendors in seven categories: five relevant to the product — Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability — and two related to the vendor — Total Cost of Ownership/Return on Investment and Vendor Validation. To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our market research, including our Benchmark Research on Analytics and Data.

IBM is a well-established provider known for its data platform and advancements in more recent years with IBM Cloud Pak for Data. It combines functionality for data compute, management and governance with automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to support self-service analytics and data science. Cloud Pak for Data provides a single environment for facilitating data management and processing across multiple data and cloud environments. IBM’s Db2 database and Db2 Warehouse are key components of IBM Cloud Pak for Data, alongside data integration, data governance, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), business intelligence (BI) and data security and privacy.

In the overall Data Platforms Value Index, IBM was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking first overall. It ranked first in Product Experience, where it was designated as a Value Index Leader in Capability and Manageability. It ranked second in Customer Experience and was a Value Index Leader in TCO/ROI. Its overall performance was impacted by its lower rankings in Manageability and Adaptability, which represent 30% of the weighting in the overall Value Index.

Our assessment finds that IBM could perform better by examining its placement as fourth in Adaptability in the area of user integration. In Capability, despite ranking first, it could examine potential improvements in functionality for database administrators and data architects.

In the Analytic Data Platform Value Index, IBM was also categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking first overall. It ranked first in Product Experience, where it was designated as a Value Index Leader in Capability, Adaptability, Manageability and Usability. It ranked third in Customer Experience and was a Value Index Leader in the TCO/ROI and Validation categories.

IBM was also categorized as an Exemplary Vendor in the Operational Data Platform Value Index, ranking first overall. It ranked first in Product Experience, where it was designated as a Value Index Leader in the Usability, Capability and Manageability categories. It ranked second in Customer Experience and was a Value Index Leader in Validation and TCO/ROI.

This assessment was based on IBM’s data platform products generally available as of September 30, 2022. Organizations should evaluate their data platform requirements for operational and analytic workloads to ensure existing products and vendors are meeting their needs. If their existing data platforms are not satisfying those requirements, they should consider whether IBM can help meet their needs.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of data platforms in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Click below to read the individual reports:

Data Platforms Value Index

Analytic Data Platform Value Index

Operational Data Platform Value Index