Attunity’s Lawrence Schwartz

Moving from proof-of-concept to deployment, Hadoop is ready for business according to Lawrence Schwartz, VP of marketing at Attunity Ltd. His company works with customers from a range of verticals, including energy, healthcare, and finance, to lower barriers to cloud and Hadoop adoption.

One of the biggest challenges in adopting new technologies is figuring out the return on investment. Measuring actual return on investment is tricky when it comes to Big Data, commented Schwartz, because “it’s hard to quantify the value.” This is especially true when one does not take specific verticals into account, pointed out Schwartz. Some of these verticals include the energy, retail and healthcare sectors where the value of Big Data may be very different to each. That’s why so many companies look at reduction on investment, like infrastructure savings, the executive explained. But that decision means many companies miss out on the “really big return” Big Data offers, which is to find new value, Schwartz went on.

While the potential to create value with Big Data is exciting, Schwartz said there’s no way to tell whether that will make Hadoop companies profitable when they go public, as some are bound to do. As an executive of a publicly-traded company, Schwartz commended that going public “keeps you honest…and focused on what’s important.”

Attunity spent time investing in Hadoop and Cloud, and now is focused on helping customers figure out how to orchestrate data and business processes. Schwartz commented that’ he’s excited to see the new ideas that arise from increased Hadoop and cloud adoption.