Dive Brief:
- Data analytics firm MapR, maker of a data platform for AI and Analytics, is preparing to shut down operations by June 14, according to a WARN notice filed with California’s Employment Development Department and first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
- The company cited "extremely poor" Q1 results for the 2020 fiscal year, last-minute client pull-backs and an inability to secure financing as reasons for the forecasted closure.
- The company is exploring a "strategic transaction" to keep 122 staffers employed. A MapR spokesperson told CIO Dive the company was already evaluating and performing due diligence on multiple offers.
Dive Insight:
The data analytics company, which raised almost $300 million in venture capital since it was founded in 2009, gained industry recognition for its Hadoop-compatible platform.
In January, tech insight provider Gartner named Mapr to its Magic Quadrant list for Operational Database Management Systems and Data Management Solutions for Analytics.
Though the company ranked high in customer loyalty and customer experience, the news of its impending shutdown is a signal of consolidation in the Hadoop market in the wake of the Cloudera-Hortonworks merger.
Gartner analysts said the merger could shift market momentum toward the new giant vendor, at a time when more customers are moving data to the cloud.
"While the ultimate market impact remains to be seen, the uncertainty related to this merger has created market opportunities for MapR," Gartner said, in January. "We believe these to be time-limited in duration as merger transition friction plays itself out over the coming year."
In the event of a shutdown, no customer data will be at risk due to the nature of its system, said a MapR spokesperson."MapR doesn't maintain the customer's data. The customer runs it on-prem or via the cloud. MapR provides the data platform."
