EMC Goes Social, Open and Agile With Big Data

HOPKINTON, Mass., March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

News Summary:

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced:

• Availability of Greenplum Chorus, the industry's first social toolset for Big Data, enabling Data Science teams to collaborate on datasets in a Facebook-like way. 
• The new OpenChorus (openchorus.org) initiative, including release of the Greenplum Chorus source code under an open source license in the second half of 2012. The goal of OpenChorus is to accelerate innovation and adoption of collaborative and social data applications running on top of the Greenplum Chorus platform.
• Examples of Chorus extensibility from the Greenplum partner ecosystem, including Greenplum partners Alpine Data Labs and Squid Solutions, for the rapid development and integration of new Chorus-enhanced Big Data applications.
• The acquisition of San Francisco-based Pivotal Labs, a privately-held provider of agile software development services and tools, to accelerate the development of Big Data applications in the enterprise.  
• An online event titled "Social Meets Big Data: Live Webcast" with executives from EMC and Pivotal Labs will be broadcast today, Tuesday, March 20 - 9:45 A.M. Pacific, 12:45 P.M. Eastern and 5:45 P.M GMT.  Event details can be found at http://bit.ly/qduws or at EMC.com.

Full Story:

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced a new wave of products and services all with a singular goal – to enable organizations to derive greater insight and economic value from Big Data – datasets so large they break traditional IT infrastructures.  Instrumental to customers achieving this goal is the enablement and empowerment of the Data Science team – Greenplum Chorus is the industry's first social and collaborative toolset designed explicitly for the Data Science team.

Today EMC announced the availability of Greenplum Chorus, delivering a Facebook-like social collaboration tool for Data Science teams to iterate on the development of datasets and ensure that useful insights are delivered to the business quickly.  In addition to being social, Greenplum Chorus is now also open. Today EMC announced the OpenChorus Initiative (openchorus.org), with a mission to accelerate innovation and adoption of collaborative and social data applications running on top of the Greenplum Chorus platform. The Greenplum Chorus source code will be released under an open source license in the second half of 2012. Project updates will be available at openchorus.org.

The Greenplum partner ecosystem serves as a critical means through which customers receive the solutions they require to connect Greenplum analytic tools with their existing data sources.  Greenplum partner ecosystem can deliver even more value – solutions integrated with the Chorus platform through its rich APIs (like solutions from early access partners Alpine Data Labs and Squid Solutions) directly impact the productivity and effectiveness of the Data Science team.

With Greenplum Chorus, Big Data is becoming more social and more open.  With the announcement of EMC's acquisition of Pivotal Labs today it now promises to become more agile.  Pivotal Labs represents the gold-standard in agile software development.  Through modern agile development methodologies and modern programming frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails) Pivotal will accelerate the development and adoption of Big Data applications in the enterprise.

Industry Quotes

Joi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab

"I believe EMC has seized a great opportunity to move way beyond the current industry focus and noise around analytics to what is a much bigger story. Specifically, I see the company leveraging unstoppable movements such as social networking, open-source software, and agile development for next-generation applications."

Customer and Partner Quotes

Katrin Ribant, EVP, Data Platforms, Havas Digital Global

"Through the use of Chorus, groups of data scientists in multiple countries are able to come together on the development of Artemis, Havas Digital's proprietary analytics platform.  This enables faster provisioning of sand boxes and better collaboration around testing and refinement of analysis and new analytics."

Eva Ho, Vice President of Marketing & Operations, Factual

"We are delighted to be a partner of EMC Greenplum.  The Greenplum Unified Analytics Platform and Chorus will be an essential data engineering platform for data scientists in all types of enterprises, giving them unparalleled access to new tools and resources to answer critical business questions using big data.  By embedding high quality third-party data sets, like the ones from Factual, into the solution, it will make it even easier for data scientists to jumpstart projects, and hopefully derive actionable insights and results from data analysis even faster."  

EMC Quotes

Scott McNealy, executive advisor, Greenplum, a division of EMC

"Data science gets its juice from the tools data scientists rely upon to work their magic. History, take Java for example, has proven that the open source model routinely delivers better tools, drawing the best contributions from users, quick-turn release cycles and more. Open source Chorus can deliver the widespread adoption and collaboration Big Data is begging for. A strictly proprietary model can't keep up and EMC is doing what leaders do. Lead."

Scott Yara, Senior Vice President of Products, Greenplum, a division of EMC

"Chorus stands at the intersection of social and Big Data. The pairing of social and collaboration helps groups collaborate and actually get valuable insights from their data. That is a very social and collaborative process. It touches a lot of people inside an organization. While most of the industry is focused on loading speeds, processing times and so on, EMC is taking the lead on 'socializing' Big Data analytics."

Additional Resources

• Press release: EMC Acquires Pivotal Labs
• Press Release: New Web-Based Alpine Illuminator Integrates With EMC Greenplum Chorus, The Social Data Science Platform
• Press Release: Squid Solutions Integrates With EMC Greenplum Chorus, The Social Data Science Platform
• Greenplum Chorus
• Tweet: Social Meets Big Data http://bit.ly/xN7mzV
• EMC Delivers Industry's First Unified Big Data Analytics Appliance
• For the latest industry news, research, webcasts and use cases covering big data, analytics, and the data scientist community visit the Greenplum Media Center
• Connect with EMC via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Greenplum

About Greenplum

Greenplum, a division of EMC, is driving the future of Big Data analytics with breakthrough products including Greenplum Data Computing Appliance, Greenplum Database, Greenplum Community Edition, Greenplum HD, and Greenplum Chorus—the industry's first Enterprise Data Cloud platform. The division's products embody the power of open systems, cloud computing, virtualization and social collaboration—enabling global organizations to gain greater insight and value from their data than ever before possible.

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset—information—in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

EMC, Enterprise Data Cloud, Greenplum, Greenplum Chorus, Greenplum Database and Pivotal Labs are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws.  Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) component and product quality and availability; (vi) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.'s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (ix) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; (xii) threats and other disruptions to our secure data centers or networks; (xiii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (xiv) war or acts of terrorism; and (xv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

SOURCE EMC Corporation