On Aug. 13, IBM and Unica Corporation announced they had entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Unica, a leading provider of marketing software solutions that focuses on streamlining marketing program development, execution and management to achieve improved marketing effectiveness. The acquisition is valued at approximately $480 million, or $21 per share, and is subject to approval by Unica shareholders. According to Aberdeen's research, this acquisition comes at a time when organizations are looking to automate some/all of their marketing process and campaigns.