Data wars heating up – Microsoft buys DATAllegro

As I have written in previous posts, what you do with data will be one of the next battlegrounds on the web.  Knowing that they had some limitations with SQL Server, Microsoft announced its acquisition of DATAllegro (full disclosure: my fund is an investor in competitor Greenplum) to enter the data warehousing market.  Enterprise volumes across the board are ramping up quickly and this clearly gives Microsoft an opportunity to capture that market.  Being an investor in Greenplum, I always like to see healthy exits of competitors as many believe it will trigger further consolidation.  When a competitor is acquired, the first reaction from many is often asking themselves why it wasn't them and fear about competing with a juggernaut, but my perspective is quite different as it usually opens new opportunities.  As I have written before, many acquisitions fail and companies are usually so distracted for the first 6-12 months trying to integrate operationally and technically, that this gives others in the market a nice window to continue executing on their business plan.  So I tip my hat to DATAllegro and look forward to an exciting 12-18 months ahead as the data wars are clearly heating up now.