Microsoft recently announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase Zoomix, an Israeli start-up focused on data quality software. With the Zoomix acquisition, Microsoft will provide customers with a manageable and scalable enterprise-class data quality solution which further enhances Microsoft's vision of making SQL Server a complete data platform for all data management needs.

Zoomix has developed a unique approach to data quality software. The Zoomix system uses guided self-learning technology to easily build a knowledge of how to parse, match, classify and clean data, and applies what it has learned to every new piece of information fed into the system, even if it has not encountered similar data before.

Following the acquisition, Zoomix's development staff will join the Microsoft research and development center in Israel, and the Zoomix solutions will be added to those of the Microsoft International SQL Server group.

Moshe Lichtman, Vice President of Microsoft International and president of R&D in Israel: "Microsoft's additional investment in Israel takes our R&D center into the field of solutions for databases, a field that is growing rapidly and is very strategic for Microsoft International. Zoomix will contribute a critical layer of data improvement to Microsoft's SQL Server Data Platform. This capability will enable organizations to meet the requirements of complex information systems, and to streamline business processes, and is therefore expected to have a great impact on the organization's bottom line. We are delighted that the Zoomix staff will be joining our R&D center in Israel, and we congratulate them on their impressive achievements."