Today Teradata acquired fellow columnar database vendor AsterData for $263 million. This fits into the current trend of consolidation of next-generation data-warehousing vendors. Last summer, Teradata acquired another columnar database vendor called Kickfire. Also in the past year, EMC acquired Greenplum; IBM acquired Netezza; SAP acquired Sybase and HP acquired Vertica.
For Briefings Direct, Tony Baer of Ovum writes that of the major platform companies, only Dell has yet to purchase a columnar database vendor.
Although Teradata has historically been focused on business intelligence and data warehousing, Dennis Howlett speculates that Teradata could spin its business off into online transaction processing because it can offer solutions at a fraction of the cost of IBM and Oracle:
Even when you take into account all the moving parts of a deal and the monetary tags that go with it, Teradata could chew off a big chunk of IBM and Oracle’s business and still profit handsomely. For companies looking at their total IT infrastructure cost landscape and already attempting to divest, Teradata could provide an intriguing possibility.
Forrester analyst James Kobielus seems to agree. He wrote on Twitter: “AsterData gives Teradata the analytic application server (analytics + OLTP) they need to duke it out with Oracle Exadata.” However, he doesn’t mention it in his lengthy analysis of the deal.
Regardless of where Teradata goes next, the big data is continuing to consolidate into the hand of a few large players.
