ParAccel
On Friday, ParAccel
met with the BBBT to share with the members the latest information about their
company and products. Some of that
information is public and can be discussed here and some is confidential. Presenters were Kim Stanick, Vice
President of Marketing and Rick Glick, VP of Technology & Applications.
ParAccel has an impressive list of over 20 clients. Unfortunately, most of those clients
are not ready to be identified publicly, so I can’t name them here. However, customers and prospects can
probably learn the names of at least some of them from their sales rep. Also some can be found in the “Featured
Customers” section of ParAccel’s web site.
It was worth noting that no product is “right” for everyone. ParAccel seems to have accepted this
and is not trying to sell their solutions as panaceas for every data analysis
challenge. Instead, (taking page
from “Crossing
The Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore) they have been carefully screening prospects
to ensure that their capabilities are a good fit for their customers’
needs. This appears to be
resulting in their clients being very successful and very pleased.
ParAccel is being very pragmatic in their approach to the
market. Offering their solutions
as:
Software
only
An
appliance (i.e., hardware (EMC and Sun) and software fully integrated)
A
set of components
Comment: It will be
interesting to see what happens to the Sun relationship in the wake of Oracle’s
acquisition of Sun.
ParAccel’s real claim to fame is its blazing speed that
makes practical complex queries in very large databases. While such queries have been long been
“possible”, but only if you were willing to go out for a long, leisurely meal,
or perhaps an overdue vacation. It
makes such queries now possible in near real-time. Key to achieving this are the power of columnar databases,
query optimization, and compiled queries.
They are planning to make a “big splash” at TDWI later this
month, with a large floor presence, customers in their booth and a bundle of
announcements.
As part of getting ready for their move to the “next level”
of growth, they have strengthened their management team with the addition of a
new CEO (Mark Lockarff).
ParAccel seems poised to aggressively attack the
market. They appear to be well
funded (details not provided), have a solid product and a strong management
team. Add to those, a well
developed marketing plan and you have a company that should be able to make an
impact.
