Today is an exciting day for all of us at Alation. We’re finally able to share what we’ve been working on for the last two years.
Soon after founding the company, we decided to let our customers determine when we launched our company and product. We had two reasons for this.
First, we knew that data accessibility was a hard problem, and one with a rich history. There have been many efforts to organize data in different ways. These efforts range from the initial idea of relational databases, to semantic layers, third-normal form models and, most recently, data governance. Some of these companies promised more than they delivered. We do not want to do the same.
Second, we wanted to base our claims on the actual benefits realized by our customers. We’re all bombarded with marketing messages, claims, and pitches. This is particularly true in the data and analytics space where there are just so many new products, ideas, and technologies. Many of these products are great, but it’s very difficult to distill the useful from the hype. So, we wanted to let our customers speak for themselves. (As it happens, the idea of reliably filtering by leveraging human experience is a major component of Alation’s platform).
Today, our partners at eBay, Square, MarketShare, and others (including some big names we’ll announce in the future) are able to talk about their experience with Alation, the benefits that they see and the vision that they have for using data in their organizations. A lot of work remains for us to get these companies to where they ultimately want to go. However, the outcomes they’ve seen to date are incredibly validating. One analyst speaks about how “Alation saved [his] life.” A manager of a massive data warehouse talks about how “Alation puts the puzzle together.” Most recently, a data governor said, “Alation puts information that you need where you need it, when you need it.”
This is the feedback that we dreamed of when we started the company more than two years ago. And, though we know that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us to achieve our vision, we’re excited for today.