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In September, HP hired former Microsoft executive Youngjohns to run Autonomy and moved the unit into HP Software, which includes Vertica, enterprise security products and applications and IT infrastructure operations management offerings. With Autonomy and Vertica now on equal footing in the HP Software unit, under Kadifa's direction, the conflicts that marred their earlier marriage appear to have been removed.
HP's remaining Vertica employees are optimistic that the reunion will enable a healthier relationship between the groups, one source with knowledge of the situation told CRN. Vertica is planning to expand its engineering team and the unit has permission to increase head count by 50 percent to 60 percent in fiscal 2013, the source said. This could help HP leverage what it claims as a key advantage over other big data vendors: the ability to manage both structured and unstructured data.
Alan Pelz-Sharpe, research director for content management and collaboration at 451 Research, believes that HP will leverage the core IDOL technology better than Autonomy has done. "The stand-alone system [used by Autonomy] was never a very good idea," Pelz-Sharpe told CRN. "But by embedding it in hardware, printers and infrastructure, I think HP can do well with it."
IDOL also fits nicely in HP's records management, and e-discovery portfolios, said Pelz-Sharpe, who expects to also see simple, IDOL-based software embedded in HP's multifunction printers in future releases.
With Autonomy and Vertica, HP has technology assets to propel it into a leading position in the big data space. The problem, as it has always been with HP, is that software assets haven't often flourished in HP's hardware-centric culture. Whitman, upon taking over as CEO, identified organizational silos as one of the obstacles she intended to get rid of. If she manages to fulfill this pledge, and HP can find a way to avoid further organizational turmoil, HP's big data vision could become reality.
"HP has the tools and technology to be a powerhouse in big data. Whether they can fully execute on that is a whole different thing. You have to hope there can be some stability in the next few years," Pelz-Sharpe told CRN.
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