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Quick Take: IBM Sues Micro Focus for Software Theft

Yesterday, IBM filed suit against Micro Focus for claims of copying part of the z/OS for data mapping in the web services implementation of Micro Focus Enterprise Suite. To understand this suit, I think the most relevant excerpts of claims in the suit are:

26. CICS® TS (Customer Information Control System Transaction Server) Web Services uses a “web service binding file,” known as a WSBIND file, to expose CICS® TS programs as web services and maps data received.

40. Micro Focus’s Enterprise Suite offers a web services implementation (“Micro Focus Web Services”) that includes a WSBIND file for mapping data
• Micro Focus’s WSBIND file uses IBM internal structures that are not available outside of IBM.
• The Micro Focus utility processing reflected in the log file exhibits the same configuration, program sequence, program elements, program optimizations, defects, and missing features as the corresponding CICS® TS utility programs.
• Micro Focus’s WSBIND file is encoded in EBCDIC—like IBM’s—yet, Micro Focus has no need for using that encoding as it uses an ASCII environment.

(Analyst’s note: I think this is probably going to be one of the key hinges of the lawsuit. EBCDIC is really an IBM-specific format at this point while ASCII is everywhere. A bit weird to use IBM’s specific encoding for characters.)

42. …no legitimate reason for Micro Focus to have copied IBM’s computer program. Without copying from IBM, Micro Focus had a broad range of design and architectural choices that would have allowed it to create software that offers the same features as the Micro Focus Enterprise Suite.

It’s no secret that IBM has bet the farm on modernization and digital transformation (see Red Hat). The ability to manage IBM customer technology evolution is core to the future of the business. If nothing else, this suit sends a strong message: Don’t Mess with the zSeries. I’m interested to see how this suit will reference Google vs. Oracle: this isn’t the same, but I’d imagine Micro Focus will try to make it sound that way.

Copy of complaint if you want to read the entire IBM legal complaint for yourself : https://filecache.mediaroom.com/mr5mr_ibmnewsroom/194536/Micro%20Focus%20Complaint.pdf

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November 11: From BI to AI (Anaconda, Coefficient, Databricks, dbt, Domino Data Lab, Matillion, Neo4J, PwC, Sagence, Snowflake, Tellius)

Editorial note: While Twitter and Meta aren’t precisely on the BI to AI spectrum per se, given the sheer prevalence and use of these massive data sources and the fast-moving news around layoffs and security issues for these properties lately, Amalgam Insights would recommend confirming that you are performing backups of relevant data on a regular schedule; that you are taking available security precautions including the use of two-factor authentication where possible; and that your communications strategies are nimble enough to respond to issues of impersonation. 

Funding and Finances

Coefficient Secures $18M Series A Funding Round

Spreadsheet data automation company Coefficient has raised an $18M A round. Battery Ventures led the funding round, with participation from existing investors Foundation Capital and S28 Capital. Coefficient will use the money to scale up global operations and expand its offerings.

Databricks Ventures Invests in Matillion

Strategic investment firm Databricks Ventures has taken an equity stake for an undisclosed sum in Databricks partner Matillion, a data integration solution. In doing so, Databricks extends their existing partnership with Matillion, providing financial support for Matillion’s Data Productivity cloud and how it works with Databricks’ Lakehouse Platform.

Updates and Launches

Tellius Improves User Experience and Ease of Visual Analysis with Version 4.0

Decision intelligence platform Tellius announced version 4.0 on Wednesday. Key new features include Multi-Business View Vizpads, allowing users to view and analyze across multiple data sources without needing to constantly switch between individual dashboards for each; an enhanced onboarding and ongoing user experience with walkthroughs and in-app chat; and more robust search functionality.

Neo4j Announces General Availability of its Next-Generation Graph Database Neo4j 5

Graph data platform Neo4J made Neo4J 5, the next version of its cloud-ready graph database, generally available earlier this week. Among the notable improvements: new syntax making complex queries easier to write; query performance improvements by up to 1000x; automatic scaleout to handle sudden massive bursts of query activity; and the debut of Neo4J Ops Manager to monitor and manage continuous updates across global deployments. 

Partnerships

Anaconda Will Integrate with Domino’s Enterprise MLOps Platform

Anaconda in Snowpark for Python Enters Public Preview

Anaconda made two partnership announcements this week. First, Anaconda is collaborating with Domino Data Lab to incorporate the Anaconda repository into Domino’s Enterprise MLOps Platform. Domino users will be able to access Anaconda’s Python and R packages without requiring a separate Anaconda enterprise license.

Second, Snowpark for Python, the Anaconda repository and package manager within Snowflake Data Cloud, has entered public preview. Snowflake users will be able to use Python to build data science workflows and data pipelines within Snowpark.  

On a related note, dbt Labs also announced support for data transformation in Python to dbt, allowing dbt customers to take advantage of Python capabilities on major cloud data platforms such as Snowflake. Joint dbt and Snowflake customers will be able to use Python capabilities for both analytics and data science projects on Snowpark.

Acquisitions

PwC Acquires Data Strategy Consulting Firm Sagence 

Data management and analytics consulting firm Sagence has been acquired by PwC, adding to PwC’s existing data strategy and digital transformation capabilities. Sagence provides additional expertise and experience in creating action plans for proposed data strategies.


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November 4: From BI to AI (Alation, Cloudera, Collibra, IBM, Informatica, Qlik)

Funding

Alation Raises $123M Series E

Enterprise data intelligence platform Alation announced a $123M Series E round of funding this week. Thoma Bravo, Sanabil Investments, and Costanoa Ventures led the round, with additional participation from new investor Databricks Ventures and existing investors Dell Technologies Capital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Icon Ventures, Queensland Investment Corporation, Riverwood Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Union Grove. Alation will use the capital to continue accelerating product innovation and global expansion.

Partnerships

Cloudera Expands Partner Opportunities, Accelerates Go to Market

On November 2, Cloudera debuted the Cloudera Partner Network, redesigning their existing partner program’s approach. CPN members will see improved tools for supporting go-to-market initiatives, a FastTrack Onboarding Program to shorten time-to-market capabilities, programs for rebates and market development funds to demonstrate financial commitment, a Partner Success Team to improve training, and additional benefits to support the new CDP One SaaS solution.

Launches and Updates

Collibra Announces Updates to Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud

At Data Citizens ’22, Collibra announced new capabilities for Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud. A new data marketplace will make it faster and easier to find curated and approved data, speeding up decision making and action. The Workflow Designer, now in beta, will help teams automate business processes in creating new workflows, and usage analytics will show which assets are most widely and frequently used. On the compliance side, Collibra also released Collibra Protect, available through their Snowflake partnership, to provide greater insight into how protected and sensitive data is being used, as well as protect said data and maintain compliance.   Collibra Data Quality and Observability, when deployed in an organization’s cloud, will help organizations scale and secure their data quality operations.

IBM Announces IBM Business Analytics Enterprise  

On November 3, IBM launched IBM Business Analytics Enterprise, a new suite that includes business intelligence planning, budgeting, reporting, forecasting, and dashboarding capabilities. Among the key new features is the IBM Analytics Content Hub, which will let users assemble planning and analytics dashboards from a number of vendor sources. In addition, the Hub tracks and analyzing usage patterns to recommend role-based content to users.

Up Next for Informatica: Intelligent Data Management Cloud for State and Local Government 

Informatica released the State and Local Government version of their Intelligent Data Management Cloud this week. This continued expansion of vertical-specific IDMCs demonstrates Informatica’s commitment to serving a variety of government clients beyond just the federal.

Qlik Launches Real-Time Enterprise Data Fabric Qlik Cloud Data Integration

Qlik released Qlik Cloud Data Integration, a set of SaaS services that form a data fabric. Among the major cloud platforms QCDI will integrate with are AWS, Databricks, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure Synapse, and Snowflake. Data from these sources will be sent through QCDI, where it can be transformed from its raw state to analytics-ready, allowing for automated workflows for apps and APIs while accounting for metadata management and lineage.

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October 28: From BI to AI (Amazon Web Services, Axelera AI, Bloomberg, data.world, Informatica, IBM, LatticeFlow, Microsoft, OpenAI, Shutterstock, ThoughtSpot)

Funding and Finance

Edge AI Company Axelera AI Announces $27M Series A

Edge AI startup Axelera AI closed a $27M Series A funding round this week. Innovation Industries led the round, with participation from imec.xpand and SFPI-FPIM. Axelera AI will use the funding for launching and producing its AI acceleration platform, as well as hiring.

LatticeFlow Claims $12M in Series A Funding

AI platform LatticeFlow secured $12M in Series A funding. Atlantic Bridge and OpenOcean led the funding round, with participation from new investors FPV Ventures and existing investors btov Partners and Global Founders Capital. The funding will go towards expanding LatticeFlow’s capacity to diagnose and repair errors in AI data and models,

OpenAI Invests Tens of Millions of Dollars in Audio and Video Editing App Descript

AI company OpenAI, most recently in the news for its AI text and image generators, is investing tens of millions of dollars in audio and video editing app Descript at a valuation of $550M. Between this, the recent expansion of its partnership with content platform Shutterstock, and more money potentially flowing OpenAI’s way from Microsoft, OpenAI is making moves to secure its position in modern AI-based content creation.

Launches and Updates

AWS Releases Amazon Neptune Serverless 

AWS announced Amazon Neptune Serverless, a serverless version of their graph database service which automatically provisions and scales resources for unpredictable graph database workloads. Amazon Neptune Serverless is available today to AWS customers running Neptune in specific regions; availability in other regions is coming soon.

Bloomberg Carbon Emissions Dataset Now Covers 100,000 Companies

Bloomberg announced that it had enlarged its carbon emissions dataset to cover 100,000 companies. The dataset includes company-reported carbon data, as well as Bloomberg-generated estimates of carbon data for companies that do not have or provide carbon emissions data, and accompanying data reliability scores.

Informatica Launches Intelligent Data Management Cloud for Higher Education

Adding to their collection of vertical-specific releases of its Intelligent Data Management Cloud, Informatica launched their Intelligent Data Management Cloud for higher education this week. IDMC helps integrate educational data from a wide variety of decentralized sources while ensuring data remains secure and compliance and privacy standards are respected.

IBM Adds Natural Language Processing, Text to Speech, Speech to Text Libraries to Embeddable AI Portfolio

IBM released three new libraries this week, expanding their embeddable AI portfolio. These libraries include IBM Watson Natural Language Processing Library, IBM Watson Text to Speech Library, and IBM Watson Text to Speech Library. IBM Ecosystem partners will be able to use these libraries to develop and scale AI apps more quickly. 

ThoughtSpot for Sheets Brings Self-Service Analytics to Google Sheets

Analytics company ThoughtSpot debuted ThoughtSpot for Sheets, a web plugin for Google Sheets. Users will be able to install and run ThoughtSpot for Sheets directly in their web browser, capable of analyzing the data available in their Google Sheets spreadsheets while minimizing the technical knowledge necessary to do so. ThoughtSpot will be compatible with additional partners in the near future.

Hiring

data.world Names New CMO, SVP of Sales, VP of Finance

Enterprise data catalog company data.world made several hiring announcements this week. New Chief Marketing Officer Stephanie McReynolds joined data.world from Ambient.ai, where she served as head of marketing. Prior to that, McReynolds was the SVP of Marketing and first marketing executive at fellow data catalog company Alation. New SVP of Sales Richard Yonkers came to data.world from Knoema, an enterprise data hub provider, where he served as the senior vice president of sales. Mineo Sakan was the VP of Global Finance at data protection firm HYCU prior to joining data.world as their new VP of Finance.

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October 21: From BI to AI (Alteryx, Bloomberg, Dataiku, Google Cloud, Oracle, Stability AI, Tableau, Tellius, TigerGraph)

Oracle CloudWorld Announcements

Oracle made a number of announcements at Oracle CloudWorld this week.

Oracle Database 23c Now in Beta
Version 23c of Oracle Database, code named “App Simple,” is now available in beta. As highlighted by the code name, improvements focused on simplifying application development, particularly for apps written using JSON, Graph, or microservices. JSON Relational Duality is Oracle’s new approach to allow data to be simultaneously used and understood as both app-friendly JSON documents and as database-friendly relational tables, allowing JSON app data to be directly queried.

Oracle Launches MySQL HeatWave Lakehouse
Oracle expanded the MySQL HeatWave portfolio with the addition of MySQL HeatWave Lakehouse, which will allow customers to process and query data in object store at multi-terabyte scale. This will directly compete with Redshift and Snowflake in providing a cost-efficient, performant lakehouse offering.

Oracle Innovates Across Data and Analytics Portfolio
Oracle also announced product innovations across its data and analytics portfolio. Oracle Analytics Cloud added a semantic modeler to present the semantic model to business users in an appropriate manner; advanced composite visualizations to organize content and present data patterns and signals in a more easily understood manner; one-click automated insights that provide recommendations for visualizations; and AI and ML enhancements to connect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure cognitive services to Oracle Analytics Cloud. Oracle Fusion Analytics improved their existing ERP, SCM, and HCM analytics solutions with vertical-specific enhancements, and added Oracle Fusion CX Analytics to the OFA portfolio to give sales, marketing, service, and finance users KPIs and dashboards.

Oracle and NVIDIA Team Up to Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption
Finally, Oracle and NVIDIA announced a partnership that will bring NVIDIA’s complete accelerated computing stack, including tens of thousands of GPUs, to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to permit AI training and deep learning inference at scale.

Funding

Stability AI Announces $101M Seed Round
Open source AI company Stability AI announced a $101M seed round at a nearly $900M valuation. Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC led the round. Stability AI will use the funding to speed up the development of open AI models across a wide variety of use cases, consumer and enterprise alike.

Tellius Raises $16M B Round
AI decision intelligence platform Tellius announced a $16M B round of funding, announced October 20. Baird Capital led the round, and all existing investors also participated: Grotech Ventures, Sands Capital Ventures, and Veraz Investments. Tellius will use the funding to expand go-to-market, hire across sales, marketing, and product engineering, and R+D for their platform.

Launches and Updates

Alteryx Announces New Analytics Cloud Capabilities, Version 22.3
At Inspire EMEA 2022, Alteryx announced the 22.3 Alteryx product release, and additional enhancements to Alteryx Analytics Cloud. Alteryx Machine Learning is now running on Alteryx Analytics Cloud, and Designer Cloud has improved Snowflake data processing performance when moving from AWS. As for Alteryx 22.3, Alteryx’s Data Connection Manager supports Azure Active Directory group authentication for Databricks and Snowflake, and integrations with third-party vaults like CyberArk and HashiCorp. 22.3 also features enhanced Google BigQuery connectivity and performance improvements.

Bloomberg Data License Content Now Available on Google Cloud
Bloomberg made its Data License content available on Google Cloud. Clients will be able to integrate this cloud data into their Google Cloud-specific workloads directly.

Tableau Launches Version 2022.3
Tableau announced version 2022.3 this week. Key new features include a Data Guide guided experience to Tableau, Table Extensions that will let customers enrich their data with advanced analytics and predictions, and adding “dynamic zone visibility” functionality to dashboards, allowing users to see only the dashboard contents that are relevant without needing to manually design multiple individual dashboards.

TigerGraph Will Support openCypher in GSQL.
TigerGraph announced this week that they would support the openCypher query language in TigerGraph’s own graph query language. Providing this support will make it easier for developers to build or migrate graph applications to TigerGraph databases.

Partnerships

Dataiku and Slalom Team Up on AI Strategy
Dataiku announced a partnership with Slalom, a global consulting firm. Slalom will provide strategic guidance to Dataiku enterprise customers on implementing AI and MLOps projects.

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October 7: From BI to AI (Apollo GraphQL, AWS, CelerData, Domino Data Lab, Komprise, Kyndryl, SingleStore, Teradata)

Funding

SingleStore Closes Additional $30M in Series F Funding, Total Now at $146M

Database company SingleStore closed an additional $30M in F-round funding earlier this week, with Prosperity7 as a new investor. This additional investment brings SingleStore’s total for their F round up to $146M, after an initial round in September 2021 for $80M and an additional $36M in July 2022. In the interim, SingleStore has doubled its headcount, with geographic expansions to Ireland, Singapore, and Australia, and hiring continues.

Updates

Apollo GraphQL Launches GraphOS to Scale “Supergraphs”

On October 5, Apollo GraphQL debuted Apollo GraphOS. GraphOS is a platform to build, connect, and scale “supergraphs,” which are themselves architectures that bring together a company’s data, micro services, and other digital capabilities into one network to simplify data access and sourcing for app building. Key features of GraphOS include providing a centralized updated repository for schemas and pipelines, new GraphQL capabilities such as live queries and edge caching,  both cloud and self-hosting options, and security and governance capabilities to control who can access your supergraphs when and why

CelerData Launches Quick Start for StarRocks on Amazon Web Services 

On October 6, analytics platform CelerData released AWS QuickStart for StarRocks. This release deploys StarRocks on the AWS cloud, supporting quick deployment of real-time analytics and providing high concurrency while guiding users to follow AWS best practices

Domino 5.3 Previews Nexus Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Capabilities
Domino Data Lab released version 5.3 of their Enterprise MLOps platform yesterday. Key features include a private preview of Domino’s Nexus hybrid and multi-cloud capabilities, announced back in June; additional data connectors for Amazon S3 tabular data, Teradata warehouses, and Trino; and GPU-based model inference capabilities extended beyond model training to model deployment, helping bring complex models based on deep learning capabilities into production. Domino 5.3 is generally available now; companies who would like to preview Nexus can request access on the Domino Nexus website.

Komprise Rolls Out Fall 2022 Release 

Unstructured data management company Komprise released the Fall 2022 version of Komprise Intelligent Data Management. New capabilities include Komprise Smart Data Workflows, which let IT teams automate key parts of the data tagging and discovery process; and Deep Analytics, which permits authorized users outside of IT to view certain characteristics of their data and work with IT for better data management.

Partnerships

Kyndryl and Teradata Team Up for Cloud Migration
IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl and data platform Teradata announced a strategic partnership earlier this week. The companies will combine Kyndryl’s data and AI services and Teradata’s cloud analytics and data platform to help customers migrate from on-prem data warehouses to the cloud.

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September 30: From BI to AI (AWS, Databricks, DataRobot, Domino, Microsoft Azure, Qlik, Salesforce, SAS) 

Dreamforce

Salesforce Premieres Genie, the New Realtime Data Platform Behind the Customer 360 

At Dreamforce, Salesforce launched Salesforce Genie, a realtime data platform undergirding Salesforce Customer 360. Genie ingests and stores streams of realtime data and combines it with transactional Salesforce data, then turns the combined data into a unified customer record. In addition, Einstein AI can provide additional relevant personalizations and predictions based on this realtime data, and Flow can trigger actions automatically based on the same realtime data. 

Salesforce and AWS Now Let You “Bring Your Own AI” to Customer 360 

Salesforce and AWS teamed up to reveal new integrations between Salesforce and Amazon SageMaker. Joint customers will be able to use SageMaker and Einstein AU in concert to build custom AI models – to “bring your own AI” and use it in realtime across the Customer 360. Cleansed and unified realtime Salesforce customer data alongside an organization’s data from an AWS data lake or data warehouse will be jointly accessible for building and training machine learning models in SageMaker.  The underlying technology enabling these integrations is Salesforce Genie, mentioned above.

Salesforce Appoints Robin Washington Lead Independent Director of the Board 

Salesforce also announced the appointment of Robin Washington as the Lead Independent Director of the Company’s Board of Directors, succeeding Sanford Robinson. Washington has served as Director of Salesforce since 2013, and currently also chairs the Board’s Audit Committee. Washington has also served on the boards of Gilead Sciences, and currently serves on the boards of Alphabet, Honeywell International, and Vertiv Holdings Co. 

Launches and Updates

DataRobot Debuts Dedicated Managed AI Cloud

DataRobot Dedicated Managed AI Cloud is now publicly available, DataRobot announced earlier this week. The Dedicated Managed AI Cloud is a dedicated hosted version of DataRobot’s AI Cloud, managed by DataRobot experts, allowing organizations to outsource certain aspects of AI platform deployment, configuration, management, and maintenance when staffing constraints limit on-prem capabilities.

Domino Data Lab Announces New Ecosystem Solutions with NVIDIA

Domino Data Lab announced two solutions with NVIDIA ecosystem partners last week. Domino and NVIDIA have created an on-prem GPU reference architecture and an integrated MLOps solution for high-performance processing needs on NVIDIA DGX systems.

Partnerships

Qlik Launches Two More Products in Partnership with Databricks  

Qlik debuted two more solutions in its partnership with Databricks. The first is the launch of the Databricks Lakehouse (Delta) Endpoint within Qlik Data Integration, which will make it easier for customers to get data into their Delta Lakehouse. The second is the integration of Qlik Cloud with Databricks Partner Connect, improving the “trial experience” of Qlik Data Analytics within Databricks. 

SAS Viya Now Available On Azure Marketplace

SAS Viya is now available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, expanding on the existing SAS-Microsoft partnership. Users will be able to access the full Viya package on Azure, including SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Visual Statistics, SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning, and SAS Model Manager, with no-code and code-centric interfaces available.

Hiring

 Debanjan Saha Named Chief Executive Officer of DataRobot

Last week, DataRobot announced that Debanjan Saha had been appointed as Chief Executive Officer. Saha originally joined DataRobot in February 2022 as President and Chief Operating Officer, and served as DataRobot’s interim CEO when Dan Wright stepped down in July. Prior to DataRobot, Saha was the VP/GM of Data Analytics at Google, and the VP GM of Aurora and RDS at Amazon. 

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September 16: From BI to AI (Altair, AWS, Dataiku, Oracle, RapidMiner, Salesforce, Sigma Computing, Snowflake, Tableau)

Updates and Launches

Oracle Brings MySQL HeatWave to AWS

Oracle announced this week that MySQL Heatwave was now available on AWS. AWS users will be able to use MySQL Heatwave for transaction processing, analytics, and machine learning automation within a single MySQL database on AWS. As part of this release, AWS customers will also have access to MySQL Heatwave ML at no additional charge, which provides machine learning capabilities inside MySQL databases. 

Presenting the PyTorch Foundation

Meta announced this week that core AI research framework PyTorch will transition to being managed by the new PyTorch Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation. Initial PyTorch Foundation board members will include representatives from cloud platform providers AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, as well as chipmakers AMD and Nvidia, and Meta itself.  Meta will continue to invest in PyTorch and use it as Meta’s primary AI research framework.

Syniti Adds Data Quality and Catalog Capabilities to Syniti Knowledge Platform

Enterprise data management provider Syniti announced that it had added data quality and cataloging capabilities to its Syniti Knowledge Platform, expanding the rubric of its data management platform’s proficiencies. These new features will allow for more centralized and consistent data management practices. 

Partnerships

Real-Time Data Sharing Comes to the Salesforce-Snowflake Partnership 

Salesforce and Snowflake revealed upcoming data sharing innovations, available in pilot in Fall ’22. Specifically, a new integration between Salesforce and Snowflake will allow for uninterrupted access between Salesforce data and the Snowflake Data Cloud in real time, without needing to move data or perform any data copying or syncing operations. This will permit faster cross-platform unified analytics and personalization of customer profiles. In addition, data from both Salesforce and Snowflake can be visualized together in Tableau, building on Tableau’s long-standing relationship with Snowflake.

Sigma Computing Debuts Snowflake Healthcare & Life Sciences Data Cloud Integration

BI alternative Sigma Computing revealed this week that it had partnered with Snowflake, launching an integration for joint customers on the Snowflake Healthcare and Life Sciences Data Cloud. The Sigma integration will allow healthcare companies a unified data platform, eliminating data silos and remaining compliant with healthcare data regulations while permitting business users to safely analyze sensitive data.

Acquisitions

Altair Expands Data Analytics Portfolio with RapidMIner Acquisition

On September 13, Altair agreed to acquire low-code machine learning and analytics platform RapidMiner for an undisclosed amount. RapidMiner will be integrated with existing Altair tools, including machine learning solution Altair Knowledge Studio, enterprise data platform Altair SmartWorks, and SAS language compiler Altair SLC. 

Hiring

Dataiku Appoints Daniel Brennan as Chief Legal Officer

Dataiku announced Daniel Brennan as their new Chief Legal Officer. Prior to joining Dataiku, Brennan was the Vice President, Deputy General Counsel of Twitter, where he spent over a decade of his legal career, having seen Twitter through its IPO, as well as more recent legal challenges.  Before that, Brennan was the Executive Director, Legal for Dell’s Global Services business unit. 

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September 9: From BI to AI (AWS, Blaize, Datadobi, Google Cloud, MariaDB, OrionVM, Privacera, Qlik, ThinkData Works)

Launches and Updates

Datadobi Updates StorageMAP to Deal with Orphaned Data

Datadobi has updated its StorageMAP data management platform. The focus of the new capabilities is around dealing with orphaned data – data where the data owner is inactive in the organization’s systems. StorageMAP can now identify data sets with a high amount of orphaned data, allowing companies to remediate said data more easily.

MariaDB and Qlik Partner to Migrate Data Away from Legacy Systems

MariaDB and Qlik have announced a partnership to help migrate organizations from legacy databases to MariaDB products such as MariaDB Enterprise Server, MariaDB Xpand, or MariaDB’s SkySQL cloud database service. Companies will be able to do so using Qlik’s Data Integration platform.

OrionVM and Blaize Present AI-as-a-Service Offering

Infrastructure-as-a-service provider OrionVM has partnered with edge AI provider Blaize, building an AI-as-a-service offering. Blaize’s AI apps will be available on OrionVM’s cloud platform. Key usecases for this include virtualizing Blaize’s Graph Streaming Processor chips for edge AI on OrionVM, creating dedicated AI environments with virgualized GSPs, and developing AI apps without needing to purchase and configure dedicated hardware environments using Blaize AI Studio on OrionVM. 

Privacera Launches AWS Lake Formation Integration, Expands Data Governance Capabilities for Cloud Data Lakes 

Data governance platform Privacera announced an integration with AWS Lake Formation, now in private preview. Data teams will now have access to Privacera’s automated data governance and data access capabilities across multiple popular AWS services such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon RDS.  Users will be able to build data access policies atop AWS Lake Formation, and policy enforcement will include popular data analytics systems such as Databricks. 

ThinkData Works Now Available on Google Cloud Marketplace

On September 7, ThinkData Works debuted its data catalog on Google Gloud Marketplace. Customers will now be able to connect data in their ThinkData Works catalog to AI and data analytics capabilities on Google Cloud.

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September 2: From BI to AI (CelerData, Fidap, Nexla, Run:ai, StarTree, Teradata)

Funding and Finance

StarTree Raises $47M in Series B Funding

Realtime analytics platform StarTree announced a $47M Series B funding round this week. GGV Capital led the round, with participation from existing investors Bain Capital Ventures and CRV, and new investor Sapphire Ventures. StarTree will use the funding for product development and to grow its sales and marketing capabilities.

Updates and Launches

CelerData Incorporates From StarRocks 

Realtime analytics provider StarRocks announced that they had incorporated CelerData to lead StarRocks development, grow its dev community, and build commercial products based on StarRocks. Forthcoming releases include CelerData Enterprise as an on-prem deployment of StarRocks with added enterprise security features, and CelerData Cloud, a managed cloud service. 

Run:ai Reveals Hybrid Cloud AI Orchestration Capabilities for Atlas Platform 

AI compute orchestration provider Run:ai announced that their Atlas Platform now supports hybrid cloud and multi-cloud AI infrastructure. Atlas provides a centralized panel that abstracts connecting to cloud platforms’ Kubernetes infrastructure, simplifying the process of managing compute orchestration.

Teradata Debuts VantageCloud Lake

Teradata Updates ClearScape Analytics

Teradata made two major announcements this week. Cloud data lake VantageCloud Lake launched on AWS, marking Teradata’s first venture on its brand new cloud-native architecture. It’s intended to be a self-service counterpart to VantageCloud Enterprise, which is designed for a more traditional IT-managed environment. Teradata also announced updates to its analytics platform, ClearScape Analytics. New features include new time-series and machine learning in-database analytics capabilities, as well as an integrated and governed model management framework. VantageCloud Lake is available on AWS now, with availability on other major cloud networks in early 2023; ClearScape Analytics is available today.

Acquisitions and Partnerships

Data Engineering Automation Company Nexla Acquires Clean Data Provider Fidap  Nexla, a data engineering automation company, announced late last week that they would acquire Fidap, a provider of cleansed data. As a result of the acquisition, Nexla will provide ready-to-use datasets, both public and commercial.