SAP buys cloudy software outfit

Altiscale becomes part of the mystery

The esoteric business software outfit which makes expensive business software which no one can be certain what it does, has just bought the cloud start-up Altiscale.

SAP said that Altiscale offers cloud based versions of the Hadoop and Spark open source software for storing, processing and analysing different types of data. It is thought that the deal was worth about $ 125 million but this is mostly guessing.

Altiscale has published a blog post to let its customers know that it will become a part of SAP. Apparently SAP wants to harness its technology:

“Altiscale is a natural fit for SAP, as we share our overall focus of helping enterprises derive business value from data — and successfully use big data. Since Altiscale is a leader in big data-as-a-service based on Hadoop and Spark, it enables SAP to drive end-to-end value in Big Data across the technology, data platform PaaS (platform as a service), analytics, and application stack”.

Raymie Stata, Altiscale cofounder and chief executive, notes that the startup will focus on integrating its technology with SAP and will also work on SAP strategy around data and platform.
Altiscale flogs its stuff to Accel Partners, AME Cloud Ventures, Northgate, General Catalyst Partners, Sequoia Capital and Wildcat Venture Partners.