Further thoughts on DATAllegro/Microsoft
My first, biggest thought about DATAllegro’s acquisition by Microsoft is “Why the ____ did it have to happen while I was trying to relax on my annual Cayman vacation???” Not coincidentally, I don’t plan to neatly cross-link all my posts and so on about DATAllegro/Microsoft until I get back to Acton this weekend.
One linking screwup is that I previously forgot to mention that — in addition to the numerous posts here — I also made several DATAllegro/Microsoft-related posts on my Network World blog A World of Bytes. They include:
- A quick primer on specialty data warehouse technologies (nothing new there if you’re a regular reader of this blog)
- An overview of why this announcement is important.
- Some quick notes on Infiniband, scale-out, and 10GbE.
Also, I’d like to correct an error that’s crept into some of the coverage of the deal, for example InformationWeek’s (quoting Gartner). Folks, there is no way on Earth that Microsoft is going to continue DATAllegro’s strategy of reselling a single or very limited range of hardware choices as the only way to get its high-end data warehousing software. Rather, Microsoft is going to have multiple “reference architectures,” covering many hardware, storage, and networking options. I.e., Microsoft will pursue the data warehouse packaging strategy Oracle is following today, but will do so with much better technology.
Comments
8 Responses to “Further thoughts on DATAllegro/Microsoft”
Leave a Reply
Great analysis as usual Curt.
Sorry about the ‘vacation’ – next time I announce a major acquisition, I’ll check your schedule 🙂
Stuart Frost
CEO, DATAllegro
Stuart,
You’d better!
Meanwhile, Linda and I have extended our vacation another week. I hope nobody else gets bought in the mean time …
Best,
CAM
I think it was about five years ago, or maybe only four, when Kim Stanick invited me to lunch to meet her new boss, Stuart Frost. I don’t remember my exact words to Stuart, but it went something like, “That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard.” You can’t always pick ’em, that’s what makes a horse race.
I proceeded to wax poetic on the future of data warehousing and I could tell by the look on his face that HE thought THAT was the dumbest idea he ever heard.
I guess the best part of the story is that we’ve both been vindicated. Stuart by the sale to Microsoft and me because my crazy-ass ideas from that time are starting to get some traction.
[…] to what I previously said, I did not come back to Acton this weekend. Instead, Linda and I are staying on Grand Cayman for […]
Curt –
Do you have any thoughts on the idea that Microsoft is at least partially in this to bolster their services division, to compete head-on with IBM and Teradata in the Services arena?
Tom,
I think the two issues of:
1. What’s the best/most successful enterprise software suite we can build?
2. How do we get the most high-margin services revenue out of our enterprise software business?
are more orthogonal than you were suggesting.
Microsoft still needs license fee growth, and a story for unlimited upside without their customers hitting a ceiling. I’d think DATAllegro was evaluated by those criteria. Only the total price Microsoft is willing to pay would, I think, be strongly/directly affected by services revenue considerations.
CAM
hi, andar here, i just read your post. i like very much. agree to you, sir.
[…] there isn’t any vacation-busting news; I’ve had some bad luck in that regard before, professionally and personally alike. Categories: About this blog, Business intelligence, Cache, Clustering, Data […]