Splunk Inc. has a plan to reach 20,000 net customers and $2 billion in revenue by 2020. Some analysts think the data operational intelligence platform company could do better than that.

“It’s currently a $1.2-billion company with a $10-billion valuation, so that’s nothing to sneeze at. You can see this company has the potential to be one of the next big software players,” said Dave Vellante (@dvellante) (pictured, left), Wikibon Inc. chief analyst and co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during Splunk .conf2017 in Washington, D.C.

Vellante and theCUBE co-host John Walls (@JohnWalls21) (pictured, right) discussed what it will take Splunk to reach $5 billion in revenue, Splunk’s customer relations, pricing concerns and the importance of cultivating developers. (* Disclosure below.)

Expanding ecosystem will be key

For Splunk to exceed the $2-billion mark, it will have to expand the application portfolio on top of its platform and really leverage partnerships while continuing to grow the customer base.

“Splunk could become a big data development platform. For them to get to $5 billion, the ecosystem has to explode,” Vellante said.

The company’s future success will likely be based on whether it can continue to adapt its technology to mirror the pace of change experienced by a loyal and growing customer community. “Splunk is a company based on change. It’s all about speed and transformation,” Walls said.

While a perception that Splunk was pricier than its competitors may have been a potential drag on growth and caused doubt about the future, Vellante and Walls did not find that to be an issue during the conference this week.

“Customers like the pay by the data drink model,” Vellante said. “There’s still some skeptics on the street, but the customer base is not skeptical.”

An opportunity that could use more focus involves cultivation of the developer community. “They don’t play up their developer tools in a big way,” said Vellante, who noted a lack of hackathons and other events that could engage developers. “I’d like to see them test the waters there.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Splunk .conf2017. (* Disclosure: Splunk Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Splunk nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE