DSA’s Five Outrageous Data and Storage Predictions for 2020
Let’s start by saying our previous track record of success hit a brick wall with our 2019 predictions. Whilst we had nailed some prediction in 2018 and 2017, we rolled out a big doughnut in 2019 with none of our predictions coming to reality. So, the challenge is on and this year we hope we pick out at least one that pans out to be true.
 
Robotic Process Automation will Converge.
The RPA market is not only hot but overcrowded, with numerous players like Automation Anywhere, Kryon, Blue Prism and UIpath, to name a few. IBM already has a close relationship with Automation Anywhere and maybe will move in and acquire them, but that’s just one possible outcome. We feel any of this crop of screen scrapers on steroids could end up in the hands of one of the big Infrastructure vendors or cloud players before the year is out.
 
Pure Storage to Get Acquired (Again)
Ok, so this is the third year we have predicted this. Clearly we have been wrong the previous two years so what’s different this year. Pure Storage’s latest financials showed some slow down in growth and from where we look, it shows no sign of ever being able to actually make money. Also, the storage market continues to adapt, and from being the shiny new kid on the block, Pure Storage looks more like a dinosaur than some of the companies that came to the market to disrupt. They are trying to change their business to an OPEX sales model, but ultimately whichever way you cut it they need to sell in. Their value will be sitting inside a bigger total infrastructure player.
 
Docker Get’s Snapped Up……..by IBM or Dell
Containers got real in 2019, with lots of headlines about Kubernetes, and whilst Kubernetes is the orchestration platform for containers, Docker is a leading actual containerisation platform. The big guys realise that in our mobile app-driven world, containers are now more than just a useful platform for R&D they will be a core component of live systems which require ongoing and rapid development. Owning docker just makes sense for the large global infrastructure providers.
 
AWS Lose a Chunk of Their Public Cloud Market Share
Figures suggest that AWS hold about 40% (ish) of the public cloud market. The march towards multi-cloud and players like Microsoft, Ali Baba Cloud and even IBM are seeing the results of their “long game” start to have an impact, which could mean that we expect to see AWS dominance start to whither. They will still be the largest kid on the block, but the other players are starting to muscle in. Expect to see a significant dent in the public cloud provider market dynamics by the end of 2020.
 
Snowflake gets acquired by Nutanix
We said outrageous predictions, and unlikely you will see this prediction anywhere else, but why does it make sense. Nutanix is positioning as a cloud provider. It’s financials have moved to monitor sales on an OPEX revenue model, and the technology lends itself to an on-premise element of hybrid cloud architectures. Cloud providers need to offer applications, and data analytics is a strong use case that drives cloud adoption. Not only that it drives storage consumption, if Nutanix wants to be a cloud player it has to think and operate like the public cloud providers. Snowflake running on a Nutanix cloud would be a step in that direction.