Dive Brief:
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) acquired data analytics firm MapR's business assets for an undisclosed amount, according to a company announcement Monday.
- HPE will own MapR's technology, intellectual property, data analytics solutions and "domain expertise" in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Existing MapR customers will continue to have support with future renewals, according to MapR's announcement.
- The transaction is meant to complement HPE's Intelligent Data Platform capabilities. To simplify the process of adopting AI/ML solutions, HPE will use the MapR Data Platform to extend HPE's BlueData capabilities for "stateful container-based applications" and enable storage and consumption of data "by a broader set of AI/ML."
Dive Insight:
Companies like MapR and Cloudera have had a hard time adapting to increasing interest in hyperscale cloud providers. By merging with Hortonworks in 2018, Cloudera carved out Hadoop market dominance. And now HPE is giving MapR a second chance at life.
"MapR's enterprise-grade file system and cloud-native storage services complement HPE's BlueData container platform strategy," said Phil Davis, president of Hybrid IT at HPE, in the announcement.
Now companies across industries that leverage MapR can continue to use the platform to reinforce digital transformation efforts. But just last month, the company's future was in limbo.
MapR had been gearing up to shut down since May. In June the company filed a WARN extension with California labor authorities, looking for a buyout to keep its operations alive. The deadline passed without news of a lifeline.
MapR saw poor results for Q1 fiscal year 2020, despite Gartner placing the company on its Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems and Data Management Solutions for Analytics in January.
The company provides a Hadoop-compatible platform for data analytics, and the announcement of its pending closure illustrated the Hadoop market's consolidation after the Cloudera-Hortonworks merger.
