Dennis Callaghan, Senior Analyst of Enterprise Software, 451 Research, analyzed Splunk’s development, the broader IT management market, and the .conf event with theCUBE co-hosts Jeff Kelly and Dave Vellante, live from Splunk .conf 2013.

Commenting on the fourth annual .conf event, Callaghan said he was “getting a lot of good feedback, people love Splunk 6,” but there maybe not be as much excitement around Splunk Cloud. “People see it as something that Splunk can use to win more customers,” not for existing customers.

Splunk is “a powerful technology, it’s been a powerful technology since it first came to the market. What it’s gotten better at, easier to use, easier to understand, easier to create reports” and queries and get answers from the data.

On Splunk’s market position

Asked to compare the ServiceNow and Spunk customer bases based on the companies conferences of 2013, Callaghan said, “this conference has gone better logistically. They’re very similar customer bases, very enthusiastic about the companies, they want to find more uses for the technologies, they want to have more users inside their companies.” Both companies are also trying to get vendors to build on their platforms.

“We’re seeing a lot of traction around the cloud around log,” Callaghan said. “Splunk has done phenomenally well and there is still a lot of opportunity out there that Splunk isn’t getting.” Splunk Cloud will help them get some of that.

Callaghan explained that companies have to give customers what they want. “Splunk, they’ve done a really good job of giving customers what they want.”  He goes on to note that Splunk will have to continue what they do — focus on customers, listen to feedback and see where they can take it.

• When pricing matters

Asked what were the risks for Splunk, Callaghan said, “I think as competition develops, they’re going to be under more and more cost pressure. There’s a lot of companies offering log management out there,” but they lack the capabilities of Splunk. Splunk is best of breed in this category. “We think there are going to be more acquisitions from Splunk in the future,” which they are going to be very strategic about. As they absorb new technologies, new teams, they will have to expand to become a broader it management service company.