IBM is also expected to discuss news around MDM (master data management), ECM (enterprise content management) and a range of releases due before the end of the year from its Optim product line, which it acquired through the purchase of Princeton Softech in 2007. Optim products focus on data archiving, classification, data privacy and test data management.

About 7,000 attendees are expected at this year's conference, compared to roughly 6,000 last year, according to IBM.

IBM's IOD strategy is broadly relevant simply because so many companies "have bet the business on a large swath of IBM solutions," said Forrester Research analyst James Kobielus. In a weak economy, customers may consider consolidating their data management technology "down to fewer, but more strategic and comprehensive, vendors, such as IBM," he added.

As far as the BI portion of its arsenal, IBM could be in a better position to innovate in coming years than its rivals Oracle and SAP, according to Forrester analyst Boris Evelson.

Oracle still has a good deal of work to integrate products from its Siebel and Hyperion acquisitions, while SAP, which recently bought BI vendor Business Objects, has "some tough decisions to make on how to help their customers migrate from Netweaver BI to the new product line," Evelson said.