SAS, the North Carolina-based firm specializing in business analytics software and services, has acquired Britain’s Memex, a small analytic software firm specializing in the public safety and criminal justice markets, in a deal that expands its capabilities in the security market and gives it a presence in state homeland security fusion centers in the United States.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Memex has 110 employees, 90 of them based in Britain and 20 in the United States. Memex’ software solutions allow its customers to bring their data together to find patterns so that they can make predictions and better direct resources. The company’s customers include police departments in Britain, several state police departments in the United States, fusion centers in Kansas City and Ohio, the Los Angeles and Philadelphia police departments, other international police agencies and the U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime.
Fusion centers typically combine the resources of multiple law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels.
SAS, which provides its software and services in every major industry, also participates in the public safety and security markets. The company wants to strengthen its position in these areas.
“In many countries, the law enforcement, justice, homeland security and defense intelligence markets have been separate, each maintaining its own data,” Ian Manocha, managing director for SAS in the United Kingdom and Ireland, said in a statement this week. “SAS is expanding its ability to share and use data more efficiently and effectively across local, national and global levels with an aim toward predicting and preventing crime.” Manocha will also serve as chairman of Memex.
SAS said that Memex’ management will remain with the company.