Opus Capital

IBM backs MongoDB

Ajit Deshpande — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:35:37 +0000

Last week brought news of a partnership between IBM and 10gen, whereby the two companies would work together to achieve interoperability between IBM’s DB2 relational DBMS and 10gen’s MongoDB NoSQL database. As part of the partnership, IBM will push MongoDB as a core NoSQL database for enterprises building web and mobile apps. At present, DB2 is second in market share in the RDBMS market behind Oracle, whereas MongoDB is the leader in the nascent NoSQL market, apparently owning almost half of the market. Both players see significant competition in their respective segments – especially MongoDB, competing against DynamoDB, Couchbase and so on in a rapidly evolving market.

This feels quite a bit like an alliance of the needy, and a potentially effective one at that. The emergence of NoSQL has a lot to do with the high availability requirements of mobile and web-based collaboration. In that context, IBM gains some good street cred by partnering with MongoDB as the promise of unlocking insights from semi-structured and unstructured data increasingly drives enterprises towards NoSQL. On the other side, with competitive solutions such as HBase for true big data applications around enterprises, MongoDB could use a channel like IBM to penetrate the broader market.

VCs have funded multiple NoSQL approaches over the past five years, so the realities of monetization are probably starting to set in now. In that context, IBM’s announcement should set in motion a wave of consolidation here. While the days of one-size-fits-all databases might be over, the reality also is that the NoSQL folks might not be able to scale without a larger mother-ship. So then, it’s time to get ready for a few exits, let’s stay tuned…

SpiderCloud Receives Industry Recognition for Scalable Small Cell System for Enterprise In-Building Coverage, Capacity & Services

tgribschaw — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:59:59 +0000

SpiderCloud Wireless

SpiderCloud Receives Industry Recognition for Scalable Small Cell System for Enterprise In-Building Coverage, Capacity & Services

Smart Devices from Mozilla and Foxconn

Ajit Deshpande — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 18:48:14 +0000

When it comes to smartphones and tablets, the OS market is quite concentrated, with Android and iOS together owning a 92.3% market share for smartphones, and a 96.1% share for tablets. Well, Mozilla and Foxconn feel it is time to fragment it a little. As of June 3^rd, the two companies announced that Foxconn will be introducing devices from smartphones to televisions and large display boards, all based on the Firefox OS. Foxconn and Mozilla plan to develop reference designs, but do not plan to introduce devices with their own brands. Foxconn represents Mozilla’s 19^th Firefox OS alliance partner (the previous 18 all being mobile operators, with Sprint being the only major American carrier in the list).

Good strategic move for both Foxconn and Mozilla. As the top outsourced manufacturing shop for mobile devices, it is in the Foxconn’s best interest to fragment the mobile ecosystem to the extent they can. As for Firefox’s browser-as-an-OS approach, this might be their best bet for relevance in the post-PC era. The bigger question though is whether the world needs a third mobile OS, and on a couple lines of thought, the answer may be a no. Chrome and Safari will both be technologically better equipped if the world chooses the mobile web approach over installed apps, from the knowledge base of their respective mother ships. As for the next five billion smartphone users, cheap android phones are already available for $50, and that’s even after discounting the fact that Mozilla’s brand recognition might be low amongst this next wave of adopters.

Will Foxconn’s reference designs bring enough long-tail device manufacturers to make Firefox OS relevant? Will Mozilla’s 18 carrier partners consider introducing their own smart device brands? Will there be enough firepower around Firefox OS to help Mozilla move beyond just playing third fiddle, when other well-funded operating systems such as Windows 8, Blackberry and Symbian have failed to do so? Well, the only things that are clear from last week are that mobility is huge, and that another player from the PC ecosystem wants in on a piece of the pie…

Panzura raises $25 million in oversubscribed Series D funding round

tgribschaw — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:10:36 +0000

Panzura

Panzura raises $25 million in oversubscribed Series D funding round

GainSpan Application Development Kit Speeds Wi-Fi Smartplug Design

tgribschaw — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 20:32:25 +0000

GainSpan® Corporation, a leader in ultra-low power Wi-Fi connectivity for the Internet of Things, has introduced the Smartplug Application Development Kit (ADK) that allows developers to quickly and easily add Wi-Fi connectivity to a regular plug or power strip and control and monitor electrical loads using a PC or an iOS or Android based smartphone.