I GET  to say I told you so!  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 out of luck.

I mentioned Greenplum and Vertical 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.  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.  The issue will be simple–Oracle knows how to sell this stuff, EMC (traditional) doesn’t.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  Why let Oracle dictate the game?  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.  Kudos for a brave move.  After Data Domain, I’m not going to challenge their ability to pull off the execution again.  I’m just dying to see this play out.  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…….

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Steve Duplessie is the founder of and Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. Recognised worldwide as the leading independent authority on enterprise storage, Steve has also consistently been ranked as one of the most influential IT analysts. You can track Steve’s blog at http://www.thebiggertruth.com