Breaking Analysis with Dave Vellante

When Facebook changed its name to Meta last fall it catalyzed a chain reaction throughout the tech industry. Software firms, gaming companies, chip makers, device manufacturers and others have joined in the hype machine. It’s easy to dismiss the metaverse as futuristic hyperbole, but do we really believe that tapping on a smartphone, staring at a screen or two dimensional Zoom meetings are the future of how we work, play and communicate? As the Internet itself proved to be larger than we ever imagined, it’s very possible that the combination of massive processing power, cheap storage, AI, blockchains, crypto, sensors, AR/VR, brain interfaces and other emerging technologies will combine to create new and unimaginable consumer experiences; and massive wealth for creators of the metaverse. 

In this Breaking Analysis we explore the intersection of cybersecurity, blockchain, crypto currency, NFTs and the emerging metaverse. To do so we welcome in cyber expert, hacker, gamer, NFT expert and founder of Ore System, Nick Donarski. 

Sanjeev Mohan, Principal @ SanjMo; Tony Baer, Principal @ dbinsight; Carl Olofson, Research VP @ IDC; Dave Menninger, SVP & Research Director @ Ventana Research; Brad Shimmin, Chief Analyst, AI platforms, Analytics and Data Management @ Omdia; Doug Henschen, VP & Principal Analyst @ Constellation Research, all sit down with Siliconangle Media's Dave Vellante for a CUBE Conversation around Analyst Predictions 2022: The Future of Data Management.

Predictions are all the rage this time of year. On December 29th, 2020, in collaboration with Erik Porter Bradley of Enterprise Technology Research, we put forth our predictions for 2021. The focus of our prognostications included tech spending, remote work, productivity apps, cyber, IPOs, SPACs, M&A, data architecture, cloud, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, AI, containers, automation and semiconductors. We covered a lot of ground!

In this Breaking Analysis, as a warmup for our 2022 predictions post, we’ll review each of our predictions for this past year and grade the accuracy of our forecasts

On Friday, Oracle announced a meaningful earnings beat and strong forward guidance on the strength of its license business; and slightly better than expected cloud performance. The stock rose sharply on the day and closed up nearly 16% surpassing $280B in market value. Oracle’s success is due largely to its execution of a highly differentiated strategy that has evolved over the past decade or more; deeply integrating its hardware and software, heavily investing in next generation cloud, creating a homogenous experience across its application portfolio and becoming the number one platform for the world’s most mission critical applications. While investors piled into the stock, skeptics will point to the beat being tilted toward license revenue and investors will likely keep one finger on the sell button until they’re convinced Oracle’s cloud momentum is more consistent and predictable. 

In this Breaking Analysis we’ll review Oracle’s most recent quarter and pull in some ETR survey data to frame the company’s cloud business, the momentum of Fusion ERP, where the company is winning and some gaps/opportunities we see that can be addressed in the coming quarters. 

Despite the posture that big tech generally and Amazo.com Inc.specifically should be regulated and/or broken apart, recent survey research suggests that Amazon faces many disruption challenges, independent of any government intervention. Specifically, respondents to our survey believe that history will repeat itself in that there’s a 60% probability that Amazon will be disrupted by market forces, including self-inflicted wounds. Amazon faces at least seven significant disruption scenarios of varying likelihood and impact, perhaps leading to the conclusion that the government should let the market adjudicate Amazon’s ultimate destiny. 

In this Breaking Analysis, and ahead of AWS re:Invent, we share the results of our survey designed to asses what, if anything, could disrupt Amazon. We’ll also show you some data from ETR that indicates the strong momentum of AWS is likely to continue, which could be a factor in any government intervention. 

Despite the more than one hundred billion dollars spent each year fighting cybercrime, when we do an end of year lookback and ask, “how did we do,” the answer is invariably the same-- worse than last year. Pre-pandemic the picture was disheartening. But since March of 2020 the situation has only worsened as cybercriminals have become increasingly sophisticated, better funded and more brazen. Secops pros continue to fight but unlike conventional wars, this one has no end. The flip side of course is that markets continue to value cybersecurity firms at significant premiums because this huge market will continue to grow by double digits for the foreseeable future. 
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Despite all the talk about repatriation, hybrid and multi-cloud opportunities and cloud as an increasingly expensive option for customers…the data continues to show the importance of public cloud to the digital economy. Moreover, the two leaders, AWS and Azure are showing signs of accelerated momentum that point to those two giants pulling away from the pack in the years ahead. Each of these companies is demonstrating broad-based momentum across their respective product lines. It’s unclear if anything other than government intervention or self-inflicted wounds will slow these two companies down this decade. Despite the commanding lead of the two leaders, a winning strategy for companies that don’t run their own cloud continues to be innovating on top of their massive CAPEX investments. The most notable example of this approach in our view continues to be Snowflake. 

In this Breaking Analysis, Dave will provide our quarterly market share update of the big four hyperscale cloud providers. We’ll share some new data from ETR based on the most recent survey, drill into some of the reasons for the momentum of AWS and Azure; and drill further into the database and data warehouse sector to see what if anything has changed in that space. 

Full stack observability is the new buzz phrase. As businesses go digital, customer experience becomes ever more important. Why? Because fickle consumers can switch brands in the blink of an eye – or the click of a mouse. Every vendor wants a piece of the action in this market including companies that have provided traditional monitoring, log analytics, application performance management, and related services. These companies are joined by a slew of new entrants claiming end-to-end visibility across the so-called “modern tech stack.” Recent survey research however confirms our thesis that no one company has it all. New entrants have a vision and are not encumbered by legacy technical debt. However their offerings are immature. Established players with deep feature sets in one segment are pivoting through M&A and organic development to fill gaps. Meanwhile, cloud players are gaining traction and participating through a combination of native tooling combined with strong ecosystems to address this opportunity. 

In this Breaking Analysis we dive into a recent ETR drill down study on full stack observability. And to do so we once again welcome in our colleague Erik Bradley, Chief Engagement Strategist at ETR. 
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All statements made regarding companies or securities are strictly beliefs, points of view and opinions held by SiliconANGLE media, Enterprise Technology Research, other guests on theCUBE and guest writers. Such statements are not recommendations by these individuals to buy, sell or hold any security. The content presented does not constitute investment advice and should not be used as the basis for any investment decision. You and only you are responsible for your investment decisions.

What Could Disrupt Amazon? Weigh in and take the survey.

SiliconANGLE and theCUBE, in collaboration with author and thought leader David Moschella, are initiating a community research project. The question we're asking is, over the course of the next decade, "what could disrupt the extraordinary success of Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook?" The first survey focuses on Amazon. 

Five public US-based companies have market valuations over or just near 1 Trillion dollars. As of Oct. 29th, Apple and Microsoft top the list, each at 2.5T, followed by Alphabet at 2TR, Amazon at 1.7T and Facebook (now Meta) at just under 1T - off from it’s high of 1.1 T prior to its recent troubles. These companies have reached extraordinary levels of success and power. What, if anything could disrupt their market dominance?