In this blog I look beyond the obvious and try to find out why people and companies do what they do - and what it means for the rest of us. 
I get to say I told you so twice in a month! Â I recently blogged about battles yet begun about the industry vs. Goliath (Oracle) and how if folks don’t wake up to what Oracle is doing with Exadata, a whole lot of people who love to sell infrastructure are going to be s*&t out of luck.
I mentioned Greenplum and Vertica specifically as key ingredients to stem the threat–because they can eliminate the need for the heart of Oracle’s attack–the database.
Greenplum builds a database designed from the ground up for massive scale–the kind required by data warehouses and BI systems. Â They do it far more effectively and a billion times cheaper than systems using the Oracle RDB to keep track of, and provide analysis on everything.
With that in the arsenal, EMC now has a shot to at least stem the tide of Oracle Exadata defections–and even more, can offer a more compelling overall solution to the problems of massive data sets. Â The issue will be simple–Oracle knows how to sell this stuff, EMC (traditional) doesn’t. Â Oracle DW/BI people speak that language–to the right buyer–who is NOT THE INFRASTRUCTURE BUYER!!!!
The BI/DW buyer is a business apps person–not someone who cares in the least about spinning disk or cache or whatever. Â EMC will either need to teach their high-end force a new language and the ways of a new customer set, or figure out how to keep that separate from the mainstream as they have done with their other successful software acquisitions. Â My guess is they will do the latter, but I don’t know yet.
Unlike VMware or Documentum, for example, this play DIRECTLY affects EMC’s bread and butter hardware offerings. Â When Oracle sweeps the floor with an Exadata deal, they sweep out Symmetrix, HP boxes, IBM, etc., and there really isn’t a heck of a lot to be done about it. Â This is perhaps why EMC did what they did–and I give them credit for seeing it for what it is and doing something about it. Â Why let Oracle dictate the game? Â With VMware, Springsource, and Greenplum, one can make some pretty compelling software arguments as to why this combination is the face of massive data set management in the future.
I love the play. Â Kudos for a ballsy move. Â After Data Domain, I’m not going to challenge their ability to pull off the execution again. Â I’m just dying to see this play out. Â It’s like a heavyweight fight in the making.
Interesting final note – Oracle owns Sun, Greenplum was founded by some Sun folk, Scott McNeally is on the Greenplum advisory board…….
Related posts:
- And The Battle’s Yet Begun……
- Oracle buys Sun
- Why is Everyone so Fired Up About Big Data?
- Oracle and Sun – Expanded Thoughts
- Big Data: I Was Right Again, And What’s Next: Marketing
Tags: EMC, Exadata, Greenplum, HP, IBM, Oracle, SpringSource, Vertica, VMware
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I think a big part of this scramble up the stack of IT offerings for EMC is that they’ve seen the trend that clients are unwilling to pay a significant amount for hardware at the moment, but they’re much more willing to pay a high price for a piece of software to tie that hardware together.
If all you’re selling looks like a “dumb storage array”, no matter how smart it is internally, then you’re going to struggle with customer perception.
By layering the Greenplum software on top of EMCs own hardware, they’ll be able to keep the better profit margins and like you say, keep Oracle/Sun out of their accounts.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Steve Duplessie and John Furrier. John Furrier said: this guys @stevedupe has good post on greenplum but questions the exeuction http://bit.ly/9RUvIH – hey steve wake up it's no brainer [...]