IBM today announced its acquisition of the privately held PSS Systems, a company which develops software to help enterprises and organizations to analyze, mechanize and implement data management policies on vast amounts of crucial business information, as well as dispose of information responsibly in a secure and simplified, cost-efficient way.

With a current and ongoing boom in demand for offerings aimed at resolving joint needs of the CLO, CIO and lines-of-business essentials, this is probably a very good time for IBM to acquire, and cash-out on its PSS investment at 20 times the value further down the road, as the new incorporation of the company makes for a united front on IBM’s part.

"Together, IBM and PSS Systems can help business mitigate legal risk and reduce costs with routine information disposal," said Deidre Paknad, CEO of PSS Systems. "Poor visibility and ad hoc controls cause companies to over-retain information and significantly overspend on information management, litigation and e-discovery."

In the light of a big-name study exposing that less than 25% of all organizations are capable of disposing data reasonably considering all legal and administrative elements, an average of $3 million spent due to legal electronic discovery per case and another average highlighting that 70% “…of information is often needlessly retained…,” the need and demand are most definitely there.

The combined PSS Systems’ and IBM’s complementary Information Lifecycle Governance software is precisely what a lot of organizations have been looking for, and more importantly, it’s listed under IBM’s unique offerings, giving it an edge in the growing options popping up around entrprise cloud solutions.