Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Dear Netezza:

If they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, well, thanks…we’re flattered!

We’ve seen your news about your new approach to your appliance. And we’re glad to see you’re moving away from the purely proprietary approach you’ve had from the beginning.

Analysts and reporters have been advising you about that for several years: last September, Curt Monash wrote, “Many people see proprietary hardware designs as a weakness, and aren’t convinced that the benefits are so large as to compensate. There are lower-priced rivals. Feature advantages vs. newer vendors aren’t that obvious upon close inspection. And so on.” A year and a half ago, Full Table Scan wrote, "The variety of MPP database vendors offering white-box solutions has certainly accentuated Netezza's secondary weakness - proprietary hardware."

And you listened! Giving your customers a variety of choices is always a good thing.

Of course, we at Kognitio have been offering them the industry’s widest range of choice for years. We were making data warehousing appliances before you guys were even around. But seven years ago in 2002, we realized that proprietary hardware-based appliances didn’t make sense, given where the market was headed. We made the decision to broaden our offering, allowing companies to license our WX2 analytical database software without tying them to our unilateral vision of the best way to deploy it. Today, companies that run WX2 can do so, incorporated in a commodity hardware-based appliance, across the widest range of platforms from HP and IBM to Sun, Dell or any other x86 Intel architecture.

And despite your claims over the years of low energy consumption, best price/performance ratio, the “greenest” solution, etc., we note you now say proprietary hardware is no longer the way to go. While we’re glad you finally agree with us, we hope that your customers aren’t too dismayed to see such a dramatic U-turn in your marketing messaging and positioning.

Overall, however, we’re glad to see you finally moving toward a more open approach to your product. We know you’ll face a number of challenges moving forward with your new direction, but know you’ll overcome them. And when you do…you’ll be at the point where we at Kognitio were several years ago.

Sincerely,

Your friends at Kognitio