Think what you may about the power of information, but many firmly believe that there is nothing more valuable in the world than data. As major advancements in technology have led to more efficient means for storing personal data (banking information, birth date, photos, social security numbers), we, humans, placed our full trust in these systems with the hope that our information was secured in an iron-clad safe amidst the outreaches of the internet. Sadly, as we witnessed on multiple occasions this past year, our trust was vastly misplaced, and our data none the wiser.
When word got out that Facebook (FB) had inadvertently allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest data from millions of the social platform’s user and ship off all those secrets to Russia, ultimately leading to Russian involvement in the US 2016 presidential election, people began to question whether, or not, storing information online was a safe choice to be made. Since then, Facebook (FB) has been stuck in the media doghouse. To be fair, when you, as the largest social media platform in the known universe, partner up with a consulting firm who lied about their intentions to perform psychological research on 270,000 individuals, but ended up selling user data from 50 million profiles to help the Republican Party take the 2016 election, it’s only fair that you receive a bit of bad press.
Facebook (FB), while guilty in their own right, is not the only company to drive us crazy and quadruple-check all the locks of our doors at night. Earlier this year, after a successful 24-month rollout of its “Informed Delivery” service, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced that an authentication weakness in the service’s API resulted in the information of 60 million consumers being exposed. The specific malfunctioning API was called “Informed Visibility,” which was designed to let businesses, advertisers, and others “make better business decisions by providing them with access to near-real-time tracking data” for mail campaigns.”If it wasn’t the USPS, it was Marriott International (MAR), whose Starwood reservations database was breached at the tail-end of November, resulting in the exposure of data from 500 million guest accounts.
While these data breaches were serious, we are missing the bigger data-filled picture here, Y’all. Some have heralded data as the fuel of the future, but they are speaking of more than just having a database full of millions of birthdates. The name of the game is big data, as well as Hadoop, an open-source framework built for storing massive amounts of data on clusters of commodity hardware. The phrase “big data” refers to immense, yet still quantifiable amounts of data that companies and other corporate entities will obtain and analyze to determine how best to create and innovate for consumers. Cloudera (CLDR) and Hortwonworks, two major companies in the Hadoop big data game, today announced that have finalized their all-stock merger, according to TechCrunch. Per the announcement, the new company will retain the Cloudera (CLDR) brand and will continue to trade under the Company’s ticker symbol, as well as expect to generate more than $720 million in revenue from the new agreement.
“Today, we start an exciting new chapter for Cloudera as we become the leading enterprise data cloud provider. This combined time and technology portfolio establish the new Cloudera as a clear market leader with the scale and resources to drive continued innovation and growth. We will provide customers with a comprehensive solution-set to bring the right data analytics to data anywhere the enterprise needs to work…”
–Tom Reilly, Chief Executive Officer, Cloudera
The merger deal between Cloudera (CLDR) and Hortonworks, while novel, indicates a greater trend for the future of the tech industry, as well as the fate of human existence. I know that’s a bold statement, but allow me to elaborate. As the worlds spin madly on, we will begin to look at other resources to commodify as traditional commodities become depleted. Access to consumer data, and copious amounts of it is invaluable to companies because to have the ability to create a product that fits exactly what people expect and demand would allow for immense success.
