by Angela Guess
Matt Asay recently called for Oracle to “quit messin’ and marry Hadoop.” Asay writes, “Oracle isn’t the biggest enterprise software vendor, but in 2010 it grew faster than its big-enterprise peers, including Microsoft and IBM, to claim third place. Being ever so ambitious, it’s unlikely that Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison will be content to take the bronze. But it’s equally unlikely that relational databases will be enough to power Oracle to the top of the enterprise heap. Oracle needs Apache Hadoop, but risks missing its chance unless it moves quickly.”
The article goes on, “Hadoop, after all, is becoming the new Linux, with a plethora of companies, big and small, contributing to the Apache Software Foundation-led project and leveraging it in a bevy of new products. Yahoo!, which originally carried the project, is contemplating a startup focused on Hadoop. More promisingly, this week should see EMC release a Hadoop appliance and software distribution, according to The Wall Street Journal. They join IBM, eBay, Amazon, Facebook, and others already using Hadoop. Oracle, to date, has been missing in action, preferring to push customers to its Exadata appliance in an attempt to leverage the hardware and software assets it acquired from Sun Microsystems. Good luck with that.”
Asay insists, “The fact is that while the Visas of the world still see plenty of reason to use Oracle’s relational databases, they also can’t live without Hadoop and other NoSQL technologies. But among the NoSQL crowd, Hadoop is king, and more and more companies are finding ways to mix Hadoop with their Oracle assets, often in ways that cut Oracle database licensing costs by putting more data into Hadoop. There’s an easy way for Oracle to mitigate the Hadoop threat while simultaneously blessing its customers: buy into Hadoop by either partnering with an existing Hadoop player or by developing its own Hadoop distribution. This latter approach is crowded and unlikely to succeed. But the former approach – an acquisition – fits Oracle’s preferred model and conveniently could be accomplished by buying back one of its previous employees: Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera, the frontrunner among Hadoop companies.”
photo credit: hermenpaca
