ParAccel Doing Analytic Databases

ParAccel joins the BBBT this morning to discuss their work in analytical databases. Conducting the discussion are Kim Stanick, VP Marketing and Rick Glick, VP of Technology and Applications.

Unfortunately much of the discussion below is confidential, but watch for announcements from ParAccel in the near future.

Kim reviewed their market and current 20+ customers. Some customers are using ParAccel to provide analytic apps as stand-alone and SaaS. Customers can buy ParAccel as a software package, or as a fully configured hardware/software appliance, or as kit of components. They are positioning their ParAccel Analytic Database (PADB) as an analytical application platform, rather than a data warehouse platform. See a technical manual of ParAccel Analytic Database at http://bit.ly/cs5Nm7.

An interesting issue emerging from their customer experiences is the interaction with the traditional enterprise data warehouse (EDW) and agile analytic applications. So, what is not working with EDW?

• We are burdened with all the baggage of EDW infrastructure, politics, etc.
• Business demands extreme agility in deployment new analytic applications
• EDW trends to shift power away from end users, creating tension

Rick argued that the analytic ecosystem is at an inflection point driven by the technologies of solid-state memory and computing virtualization.

Kim outlined their future messaging on:

1. Intrinsic speed of the technology is now supporting any thinking style
2. Analytic capabilities allow us to ask the 'unaskable' questions
3. Elastic scalability ensures full scope of required infrastructure

We discussed Kim's plan for "Going Big at TDWI". Fun stuff! Getting traction in media mentions. Mark Lockarff recently became CEO to take the company to the next level. Founder Barry Zane remains as CTO.

My Take... ParAccel has good people who are pursuing a solid vision using a set of exploding technologies. In the large corporations, their success depends on opportunities driven by business requirements for analytic application, relative to IT requirements for a common enterprise DW with a standard infrastructure. For the rest of the industry, ParAccel will do well with the numerous business initiatives within smaller and emerging companies.