In a move to round out its recent spate of purchases in the BPM space, Metastorm announced on Tuesday that it will acquire Spotlight Data, a company that specializes in process data collection. Process data typically include such information as how long it takes to complete a process and the common order of steps to finish the task.

Last month Metastorm acquired Process Competence, and in August, the company acquired Proforma.

According to Colin Teubner, BPM analyst with Forrester Research, the acquisition of Spotlight Data will give Metastorm and important source of data to feed into the Proforma process analysis engine, which, in turn, optimizes business processes.

The Spotlight Data technology will be called marketed as Metastorm Discovery and will also capture offline activities within a process.

While point solution and vertical solution providers have been the subject of many recent acquisitions by the giants of the software industry such as Oracle, SAP, and IBM, BPM has to date remained untouched by these acquirers who have chosen instead to build out their own solutions, said Teubner.

Metastorm Discovery is available immediately and has already been integrated into the Metastorm provision BPM suite.

Advanced Micro Devices on Monday is expected to launch the "Spider" platform, which combines the company's next-generation quad-core processors, graphics cards, and chip sets in one platform to deliver better graphics, performance-per-watt and improved high-definition video.

Targeted at gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, desktop PCs with the Spider platform include the quad-core Phenom processors and can hold multiple ATI graphics cards to give users the "ultimate visual experience," according to AMD.

The quad-core Phenom processor, also expected to be launched on Monday, will provide the processing power to the platform, and will be initially available in speeds of 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz. Processor speeds will crank up to 2.4GHz to 2.6GHz in the first quarter of 2008, said Leslie Sobon, director of product marketing for desktop systems at AMD. Phenom includes three shared caches to improve memory performance, an improvement from the two caches included in earlier AMD processors.

The chips, manufactured using the 65-nanometer process, have multiple power-efficiency features that set them apart from Intel's latest Penryn processors, Sobon said. A hardware and software platform allows the processor to detect the application running and adjust power consumption accordingly, she said. For example, if a user is running an e-mail application, the processor automatically adjusts to use less power. The processor also improves energy efficiency during idle time, she said.

The processors also have improved hyperthreading technology for better application performance, Sobon said.

AMD will ship the 2.2GHz Phenom 9500 and 2.3GHz 9600 processors for $251 and $283, respectively.

PCs based on the Spider platform will ship with the ATI Radeon HD 3850 and ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards. The graphics cards support Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 specification that enhances overall image quality on PCs. DirectX is the primary interface responsible for rendering multimedia, including game images and video, on Microsoft platforms. It also renders better high-definition video with support for UVD (Unified Video Decoder), which results in better HD DVD and Blu-ray images.

Spider will support CrossfireX technology, which allows up to four graphics cards to work together to enhance graphics performance in a system. That allows scalability in graphics performance and saves users from investing in graphics chips in the future.

Computers with the Spider platform will start shipping on Monday and many vendors, including iBuypower, Falcon Northwest, Cyberpower, and Velocity Micro, will offer PCs that use it.

By packaging a CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit) under one platform, PCs will become more affordable for users, Sobon said. However, users will be able to purchase components like graphics cards from other vendors, though it may cost a bit more, Sobon said.

Spider is the first fruit of AMD's acquisition of ATI, Sobon said. After acquiring ATI last year for $5.4 billion, AMD said it would work on a chip code-named "Fusion," which integrates a GPU and CPU on a single die. Fusion is expected to be delivered by late 2008 or early 2009.

However, since the acquisition, AMD has struggled, losing processor market share to Intel and recording four straight quarterly losses weighed down under costs related to the ATI acquisition.

While Spider doesn't combine a GPU and CPU on a single die, it is an incremental step towards reaching Fusion, said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research.

Both Intel and Via have failed at delivering a combined graphics processor and CPU platform, with Intel killing its Timna project in 2000, and Via failing with its Matthew microprocessor project.