Information Management’s “40 Vendors We’re Watching” 2012 is a list of up and coming vendors on our radar that are doing their part to shape the groundswell in information management technology in the 21st Century.

As our editors and advisers reviewed the strengths and of each of these companies, we determined that five main themes were apparent: analytics/visualization, big data, business intelligence, database, integration/governance. Our analytics/visualization category has some crossover with our BI category, but is generally more focused on visual exploration tools and purpose built analytic apps for domains like marketing. [Note: Some vendors cross multiple categories.]