Ambuj Goyal is general manager, business analytics and process optimisation in IBM’s software group. I caught up with him because I wanted to learn more about the reasons behind the firm’s $1.2bn cash purchase of SPSS last July, amongst other things. That price worked out at roughly four times SPSS’ revenue -- $302.9m in 2007 – and a sizable 25 times its earnings. The deal is expected to close imminently, subject to regulatory requirements and shareholder approval.

Read the rest and listen to the podcast at: http://www.businessreviewonline.com/blog/archives/2009/09/cbr_podcast_ibm.html