It would seem as if becoming a billionaire has, like many “fads” in our time, become nothing more than a regular occurrence with dwindling social significance even as we speak. Though it may be a privileged perspective, there isn’t a person living in a developed nation that hasn’t heard of Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB), or Google (GOOGL), but if you look to big-name online presences in Asia, the key player is Alibaba (BABA), arguably the world’s largest online commerce company. For those of you unconvinced of the sheer dominance of Alibaba’s e-commerce business, the Company’s transactions from its online sites totaled $248 billion last year, more than eBay (EBAY) and Amazon (AMZN) combined, according to the Wall Street Journal. Now, as we’ve seen with individuals like Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s (TSLA) Elon Musk, no fortune 500 company is complete without an eccentric founder at the helm, and in terms of Alibaba Group Holdings (BABA), the man responsible for one of the most well-known brands on the planet is none other than Jack Ma. Stemming from humble corporate beginnings, Ma struggled attending university and ultimately became an English professor for several years before growing tired of the profession. Many years down the line, and billions of dollars later, Ma is responsible for creating one of the most successful companies in the history of the Chinese economy.
Like many of his contemporaries in the technology industry, Jack Ma has always understood the importance of investing in the future, and in the advancement of this philosophy, Alibaba has been working with Data Artisans, a Berlin-based startup that provides distributed systems and large-scale data streaming services, since 2016, according to TechCrunch. Data Artisans garnered significant industry attention back in 2014 when the company developed Apache Flink, an open source large-scale data processing platform. Given the notion that companies across all sectors are famished for consumer data, and subsequent technologies to process and analyze such information, it would make sense that a company like Alibaba would get involved with Data Artisans on the cutting-room floor.
In full recognition of Data Artisans’ potential opportunities for the Company, Alibaba8 acquired the German data analysis firm on Tuesday, in a deal reported to be worth around $103 million. The agreement, confirmed by blog posts from both Alibaba and Data Artisans, will create a collaborative partnership predicated on building and innovating around Big Data open source technologies. Data Artisans co-founders Kostas Tzoumas and Stephan Ewen naturally celebrated the recent acquisition of their company, but not solely because of the payout are given to each of them.
Tzoumas and Ewen explained, in a blog post, that the deal represents a greater significance at a time when many open source technologies and companies decide on less collaborate approaches. As major advancements in technology have led to more efficient means for storing personal data (banking information, birth date, photos, social security numbers), companies continue to look for ways to tap into these vast stores of data to better guide their business practices.
“By leveraging the technology expertise of both teams and shared passion to develop the open-source community, we are confident that this strategic tie-in will further strengthen the growth of the Flink community, accelerate the data-processing technologies and help bolster an open, collaborative and constructive environment for global developers who are passionate about stream processing and enabling real-time applications for modern enterprises.”
-Jingren Zhou, vice president of Alibaba Group
From Alibaba’s (BABA) perspective, it makes perfect sense that a company of its stature would build out its framework to include open source and infrastructure tech. Zhou, the Company’s vice president, told TechCrunch that Alibaba acquired Data Artisans to work together and develop innovative approaches to understanding big data while contributing to both the tech sector as well as putting forth efforts to strengthen community development.
