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    The Biggest Big Data Company You’ve Never Heard of Readies for Business Use

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    Capitalizing on Big Data: Analytics with a Purpose

    Until recently, Splunk has been content to focus on the IT crowd, primarily marketing itself as machine-to-machine analysis software. It’s the go-to log analysis software, used to identify network bottlenecks or security breaches, according to InfoWorld.

    “Splunk’s M2M data analytics software is without any close rivals, according to industry watchers,” Pete Barlos of Investor’s Business Daily writes.

    It’s about to jump out of that box and into the business analytics game, according to Barlos and other industry watchers — and that could mean serious competition for bigger analytics players.

    Splunk CEO Godfrey Sullivan revealed the company’s business analytics plans during a Feb. 26 earnings call, the same day the company announced a new licensing plan that accommodates wider enterprise use. He shared that Domino’s Pizza has already applied Splunk’s solution to the business side, using the software to better target regional ads to customer orders.

    Splunk is flexible enough to compete as an indexing engine or a more traditional database, J. Derrick Wood, an analyst for Susquehanna Financial Group, told Barlos. Wood anticipates it will be able to compete against Adobe, Google, IBM and Oracle, among others.

    Doug Henschen of Information Week points out that Splunk offers a wide range of Big Data options, including Splunk Hunk, an analytics tool that works in conjunction with Hadoop. There’s Splunk MINT Express for mobile data. It also works with NoSQL databases and offers apps for AWS, Salesforce and mobile security.

    Did we mention there’s a cloud option? There is.

    Splunk

    Plus, there’s the fact that Splunk can handle real-time streaming data. It doesn’t take a tech wizard to see how Splunk will be useful as the Internet of Things comes online. And it doesn’t take a financial whiz to realize the business value in that. In fact, Henschen points out, despite not being profitable, Splunk easily outranks most Big Data vendors when it comes to revenue.

    “For fiscal year 2016 Splunk is forecasting a 2 percent to 3 percent operating margin on projected annual revenue of $600 million,” he writes. “While most big data vendors are still scratching for their first $100 million in revenue, Splunk is a dollar among dimes in the big data market.”

    Finro Equity Analyst Lior Ronen predicts the company is well-positioned to capitalize on a Big Data spending burst, despite a 15 percent drop recently. 

    “I believe that the big data analytics market is headed upward as the flood of data increases, and I think Splunk, which is the biggest pure-play in big data analytics, is the right pick to monetize that increase,” Ronen writes on Seeking Alpha.

    Loraine Lawson is a veteran technology reporter and blogger. She currently writes the Integration blog for IT Business Edge, which covers all aspects of integration technology, including data governance and best practices. She has also covered IT/Business Alignment and IT Security for IT Business Edge. Before becoming a freelance writer, Lawson worked at TechRepublic as a site editor and writer, covering mobile, IT management, IT security and other technology trends. Previously, she was a webmaster at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and a newspaper journalist. Follow Lawson at Google+ and on Twitter.

    Loraine Lawson
    Loraine Lawson
    Loraine Lawson is a freelance writer specializing in technology and business issues, including integration, health care IT, cloud and Big Data.

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