Aberdeen Group Acquired by Marketing Firm

Harte-Hanks, a direct marketing firm, on Monday announced plans to acquire privately held tech market research firm Aberdeen Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Harte-Hanks, based in San Antonio, Texas, said the deal is expected to be completed by the end of September. The boards of directors of both Harte-Hanks and Aberdeen Group have approved the transaction, according to the companies.

Boston-based Aberdeen Group, founded in 1998, provides information-technology benchmarking data collected from 25,000 companies over two years and other research. Its reports are sponsored by I.T. vendors; Aberdeen clients include Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.

Gary Skidmore, senior vice president at Harte-Hanks, said in a statement that Aberdeen’s research will enhance the ability to deliver “qualified leads” for Harte-Hanks clients. “We believe this intelligence will assist our clients significantly in their own marketing efforts,” he said.

Harte-Hanks, which reported $1.13 billion in revenues for 2005, said Aberdeen Group’s offices will remain in Boston. Harte-Hanks has two other locations in eastern Massachusetts: Billerica, Mass., where its Trillium Software data-quality software division is located, and East Bridgewater, Mass., which comprises print-on-demand and marketing fulfillment operations.