Can HP Neoview Survive and Thrive?

As a very large technology and services organization, HP continues to invest in new opportunities. Of course a centerpiece of its investment has been in software, server and storage technologies, including its focus on data warehousing. HP has for many years capitalized on the data warehouse industry through its server technology, but in recent years has launched the HP Neoview enterprise data warehouse solution to play in the software and appliance aspect of the industry. While HP was out of the gate in 2007 with Neoview and appeared to have a rosy future, much has changed in the last year.

The initial set of HP Neoview customers that brought momentum has not increased a lot, and the future of the product is not clear. There's significant competition from the likes of Teradata, newly confident and competitive, IBM, with its advances in appliances announced at the IBM IOD conference, and Oracle, which announced a data warehouse appliance with HP at the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference. Other competitors, like Greenplum, Infobright, Kognitio, Netezza and Vertica, have also inserted themselves into the ring for your data warehouse business, making things even more interesting with specialized database and appliance technologies.The recent HP partnership with Oracle on the HP Oracle Database Machine and HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server brings integrated appliances to the data warehousing and storage market. This partnership has not simplified matters for HP Neoview; in fact, it has made things worse. The partnership can't be ignored, as HP is Oracle's exclusive technology provider for these appliances and Oracle realizes that it must participate in the data warehouse appliance market. Those of you examining your options for large-scale data warehousing will find HP bringing the Neoview appliance to your attention, but you many also see the Oracle-HP branded data warehouse appliance as a potentially better long-term option. There's no doubt that HP makes a lot more money selling server and storage technology than it does selling Neoview, and HP CEO, Mark Hurd, needs to perform whatever free-market capitalist activities possible for increasing hardware revenue against competitor IBM. The other major hardware provider, Sun Microsystems, seems to not really understand how to leverage the market potential in data warehousing like they did in the 90's and it is challenged with declining market share and lack of a clear strategy. Maybe the current business woes will get CEO Jonathan Schwartz to focus on this opportunity and build an organization that can engage the market; the efforts in the last decade have been declining, not increasing.

It has not been clear that HP has a grand plan or strategy for data warehousing as it hedges its side bet with HP Neoview while pursuing larger revenue potential with partnerships like that with Oracle. I outlined the confusion in HP's marketing in BI and data warehousing earlier this year after attending the HP Analyst Summit, and I believe this is still part of the problem.

What is clear is that Oracle does not appear to be worried about Neoview and are focusing (by way of the Oracle partnership) on the range of data warehouse appliances addressed by vendors from Netezza to Teradata, where HP does not always make the shortlist for consideration. Organizations like yours continue to look for ways to simplify and reduce the costs of data warehousing. Will appliances take up more of the purchasing compared to buying database software and hardware separately? Clearly HP hopes so.

The big question for HP is deciding if it will continue with HP Neoview or just get behind the HP Oracle Database Machine and get back to figuring out what to do with all the consultants brought on board through the EDS acquisition. It does not appear that HP wants to make an acquisition and buy marketshare in data warehousing, as that might be too expensive an option. In either case, HP Neoview's future is not clear, and the longer HP makes things confusing, the larger the risk of proving others, like Teradata, to be a better option. I am sure of one thing: market forces in the next year will make the choice known on HP Neoview and will determine its future place in data warehouse history.

Let me know your thoughts.HP has for many years capitalized on the data warehouse industry through its server and storage technologies, but in recent years has launched the HP Neoview data warehouse to play in the software and appliance aspect of the industry. While HP was out of the gate in 2007 with Neoview and appeared to have a rosy future, much has changed in the last year...