IBM's tools give Big Data a good seeing to

Do you trust IBM?

I don't.

In preparation for a talk I gave on Hadoop, I asked my contacts within IBM's Information Management pillar about who/what is driving IBM's Hadoop effort. In the Hadoop world, Cloudera and IBM offer support. (Well IBM says that they offer support but getting information is like pulling teeth.)

IBM's consultants that grok Hadoop are in their Emerging Tech group. IBM offer's a free version of their Hadoop release however its only 32bit and their 'up value' enhancement is a cloud configurator which is less than useless. (Hint: You don't need a cloud configurator tool.)

Emerging Tech isn't part of SWG's Information Management pillar, so that any consulting being done is on IBM Information Management paper, but isn't done by IM lab services staff. IBM's sales staff are not capable of talking to customers about Hadoop/HBase/Hive/Pig etc so they cannot effectively explain the value add and risks of choosing Hadoop.

There is no Hadoop Product Manager or someone who handles the business/marketing side of IBM's offering.

There is no IBM pointy haired exec who handles 'Big Data' as part of their growing IM portfolio. IBM acquired SPSS yet they are not in charge of this and are probably the closest things to gurus on analytics.

So how can you trust IBM to deliver something when they have no actual product offering or core center of competence?

You'd be better off hiring someone like myself who'll cost you less than half of what IBM would charge for my skill set. (Yes I do know IBM's Information Management rates for lab services consultants. ) The reason you pay higher rates to IBM lab services is that if something goes wrong, IBM will make you whole. But how can they do that if their in-house talent isn't capable of doing that?

Sorry while IBM is slowly putting their toe in the water, they are still far from being a trusted source of providing services.

I hope that IBM's takeaway is that until they jump in and develop a 'Big Data' strategy... they shouldn't be taken as a serious player.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but I'm getting sick of all of the big companies like IBM and Microsoft that jump on the 'Cloud' bandwagon because its the latest popular buzz words. To the CLOUDS!

:-(

The flame, for IBM and not El Reg.