Beyond MDM: For Informatica Two’s Company, Three’s a Cloud

Previously I blogged about “Why Informatica–Siperian beats IBM–Initiate Systems, especially if you are an MDM buyer today” . Watching the numerous accolades coming from the #INFAanalyst tweetstream last week has shed further light on Informatica’s overall data management strategy and their commitment to the cloud. So while many have been focused on the two company Informatica-Siperian combination for MDM, Informatica leadership has clearly been investing additional brain cycles in their overall cloud data management and integration offerings.

Not that this should be news to anyone who was paying attention back in November 2009, when they announced the beta availability of the Informatica Cloud 9 Platform – a multi-tenant, enterprise-class data integration platform-as-a-service (PaaS). At the time, they also announced data quality via the cloud with the addition of Informatica Address Quality Cloud Services. Their AddressDoctor acquisition last Summer was the perfect setup for this since AddressDoctor already had a robust web services offering.

Now Informatica has served further notice to the competition by announcing a third cloud offering with the industry’s 1st cloud archiving service optimized for databases and applications. This lines up perfectly with their three main business units focused on data integration (Powercenter), data quality (cleansing, identity resolution and now MDM) and database and application archiving (ILM).

Here are some of the premier analyst tweets from Informatica analyst day on the topic:

marksmithvr:

1. Informatica has Cloud Storage for Enterprise Data, Buck a Gig, Simple, No Hardware, Storage or Hassle, What a Deal! #infaanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
2. Adam Wilson, GM of ILM at Informatica has best demo, compression of 15 years of customer interaction is on 1 thumb drive! Wow. #infaanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
3. Informatica Cloud Store Option can relocate data into file systems & archive for saving money and improving performance #infaanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

NeilRaden:

1. Adam Wilson: I have all of the CRM data of INFA from inception on this thumb drive. My advice – dont lose it. #INFAanalyst about 3 hours ago from web

merv:

1. INFA Cloud Store Option archives frm pkgd apps or legacy, DWs. Compresses, encrypts & moves to cloud. query w/out “inflating” #INFAanalyst
2. INFA will help customers eliminate database licenses. Should make them friends – and enemies. #INFAanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

What the Siperian acquisition might eventually add  to an Informatica MDM cloud strategy, only time and the brain trust of Ivan Chong, Arvind Parthasarathi, Ken Hoang (founder of Siperian) and others will tell. All I can say is Informatica continues to make all the right moves, turning two’s company acquisitions into three’s a cloud announcements.

If I were IBM, Oracle and others I’d be sitting up and taking even closer notice. Though rumors of Informatica themselves being acquired continue to abound, if Phil Russom’s tweet below referencing a quote from Adam Wilson (GM of Informatica’s ILM group) comes true, Informatica will command much more of a premium than the current bargain valuation of $2.1B (4 x $500M revs) :

prussom

1. INFAs Adam Wilson: Were baking cloud into everything we do. In future, all Informatica products will be available on a cloud. #INFAanalyst about 3 hours ago from web

For Informatica the future is cloudy and sunny, all at the same time.

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