Hadoop vendor MapR Technologies Inc., has just grabbed a major new customer in the form of Dentsu razorfish, which is a joint venture between advertising giant Dentsu Inc., and digital agency razorfish.

Dentsu razorfish said it’ll be using MapR’s Hadoop to power its Next Generation Communication Platform (NGCP) to bolster its digital marketing services for its clients. Dentsu razorfish said that data analysis is becoming increasingly important to the specialized online-to-offline and omni-channel commerce services it provides, and as such MapR’s Hadoop was the most suitable solution for its data management needs.

“MapR was the absolute best choice in terms of cost and performance, including real-time capability and serviceability, which are key criteria behind this analytics system project,” said Mr. Hidenobu Sakata, senior technology director at Dentsu razorfish.

Hidenobu said MapR offered the best balance of open-source and patented technologies, noting that it has “enterprise-grade” capabilities that other Hadoop distributions lacked.

These features include MapR’s NFS interface that accelerates real-time data analysis and processing; a file system that fully supports random read/write processing; a redundant, node-based job management system that stabilizes service levels and protects against errors; and a decentralized and redundant metadata management feature that is optimized for performance and able to exclude single points of failure.

The features cited by Hidenobu are compelling evidence that there should be room for all three major Hadoop vendors – Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR – in this emerging multi-billion dollar market. SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier made this point during Hadoop Summit 2014, citing recent research from Wikibon that the Hadoop market will be worth in the region of $50 billion by 2017.

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Furrier’s argument is backed up by numerous customers who note that all three distros have specific advantages and disadvantages. Even so, Wikibon analyst Jeff Kelly believes it’s only a matter of time before one company emerges as the industry leader.

“One company will come ahead of the other, and they all want that top spot, but there is enough room in this market,” said Kelly on theCUBE. “You’ll have a winner, a second place, and maybe even a third a little way back.”

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