How Companies Are Wrestling Over Big Data

Big data today is considered as one of the most prevailing, trending and emerging technology. As the escalation in data is rapidly increasing, industries are progressively adopting this technology to obtain better insights from the data. Even businesses are onboarding big data analysts to assist their organizations to fulfill customers' requirements and demands. And analysts do this process by curating valuable insights from raw data.

To stay competitive in any industry, big data is becoming an indispensable component for businesses. They are leveraging it to comprehend and forecast consumption patterns or advance operational efficiency.

There is a wide array of companies worldwide who driving big data technology and services market, including IBM, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, HP, SAP SE, Amazon Web services, Dell Incorporation (EMC), Teradata, Cisco Corporation, SAS Institute.

Moreover, companies like Salesforce CRM can see the mushrooming demand for big data and the analytics involved. They are planting their stake deep in the foundation of the industry no matter the cost.

Wrestle Over Big Data

Recently, Salesforce announced to purchase all-stock of Seattle-based big data firm Tableau Software Inc for $15.3 billion, and marking the major acquisition for CRM since its inception. As part of the acquisition, Salesforce is paying a roughly 45% premium from DATA's closing price on Friday. This is a surprising premium to pay for a firm that wasn't low-priced, to begin with. And this deal is expected to be finalized 1st October of this year.

This announcement is following Google's GOOGL declaration that acquired Looker for $2.6 billion, with 62.5% premium over the prior valuation, which came into the view last week. As a business intelligence and data analytics platform, Looker has been competing on the heels of Tableau. The fight over cloud computing and big data is starting to escalate and is expected to more consolidation as these firms affray for market share.

Google and Salesforce are both shaping their terrain before anyone else can dive in to steal it. Though, the premiums that these companies have to pay to cover the market of big data may not be worth the price at this late stage in the business cycle.

With the acquisition of Tableau, the anticipation is that Salesforce will be able to assimilate business analytics across its different offerings, where data for different industries and products exist. Customers, with more analytics software, could pull data from the various Salesforce clouds they offer, including customer relationship management (CRM), marketing and sales, among others.

Salesforce's deal comes days after Google acquired big data analytics company Looker for $2.6 billion and exceeds the $5.9 billion that the cloud-based software company paid to take U.S. software maker MuleSoft last year.  Mulesoft assists with application and data integration so that big data can work together impeccably.

Customer Relationship Management with DATA

CRM and DATA, these two segments have some obvious interactions as Salesforce being the biggest CRM firm and Tableau as a leading data analytics company. With blending these efforts will improve Tableau's ability and offer to scale, and further expand and entrench Salesforce's reign in the cloud and big data marketplace.

Though for investors, Salesforce is going to have to prove the value of this cumbersome acquisition, outside the further revenue growth it will bring. Also, pricing pressure from Microsoft and Google could mean a tough battle ahead as well.

Besides, cloud computing and big data analytics are still in the early stages of development and will likely to witness more high-volume growth in years to come as promising technologies continue to advance. It will also be interesting to see how investors continue to react to CRM as analysts scramble to adjust their mockups.