• by Shankar Gupta , April 5, 2006

Two recent deals signal an uptick in merger and acquisition activity in the Web analytics space: Software giant Microsoft purchased analytics firm ProClarity, and Coremetrics acquired IBM's SurfAid Analytics. The deals, announced this week, follow a string of smaller acquisitions last month.

Jupiter Research analyst Greg Dowling said growth in the industry is fueling the integration of large software vendors with analytics technology providers, as well as the consolidation among the larger players in the analytics space. He added that the industry is likely to consolidate even further, as analytics companies that previously focused on e-commerce now turn their attention to publishers in other spaces.

Coremetrics CEO Joe Davis said his firm--which focuses on e-commerce sites--purchased IBM's SurfAid--which concentrates on publishing, but not e-commerce sites--in hopes of extending its user base. Coremetrics also had an eye on acquiring SurfAid's client list, which includes parent company IBM.

Last month, online marketing firm Unica purchased analytics provider Sane Solutions, picking up its analytics tool NetTracker. In addition, research firm Hitwise purchased HitDynamics, to integrate its product into its Online Competitive Intelligence research service; last June online research firm I/PRO purchased Web analytics firm Datanautics, formerly known as Accrue.