John Thompson
U.S. CEO,
Kognitio
Rebellion and responsibility are native instincts in life and in business. When it comes to cutting ties to old ideas, Kognitio’s U.S. CEO John Thompson has been there and done that in a 25-year technology career spanning well-established vendors, startups and consulting. In private life, Thompson pursued a dirt bike passion from age five, but today, mindful of his daughter’s soccer career and his son’s fastball, has dialed back to his preferred Harley-Davidson and always wears a helmet. What excites Thompson in business these days is an opportunity to pitch fast and flexible database software (Kognitio’s WX2) against some disruptive delivery models and hardware advances, as he explained to DM Review’s Jim Ericson.
DMR: Some people are still confused about Kognitio’s legacy with WhiteCross and different product strategies in the U.S. and U.K.
John Thompson: WhiteCross has been in business since the late 80s, had come to the U.S., left and then was merged with Kognitio in 2005. The new board members wanted to see an ongoing record of product improvement, moving the WX2 product from the WhiteCross hardware/software product to a software-only environment. Once Version 6 had solid traction and three years of profitability in the U.K., they decided to reenter the U.S. market. I’ve heard people say WhiteCross or WX2 is coming back; others are seeing us as Kognitio for the first time. The products are the same in both markets, though we don’t offer data migration in the U.S. We do offer WX2 for data warehousing, as software, as an appliance or through data as a service [DaaS], and we offer other services that help people build robust and reliable BI implementations, though we don’t sell any of that software ourselves.
DMR: We’ll talk about delivery models, but first, what do you think is causing the biggest buzz inside Kognitio right now?
JT: Everybody is truly excited about some new implementations we’re looking at with U.S. prospects around in-memory databases. We’re talking to one company about a 40-terabyte in-memory database. We’re talking to another prospect that needs an in-memory database starting at one terabyte but wants it to grow to 25 terabytes in one year and 100-plus terabytes in two years. When people see 50, 60 or 80 times faster performance than what they’re looking at in an appliance, they tell us it’s a game changer. The in-memory aspect of WX2 is really getting a lot of attention.
DMR: We’re looking so much at the appliance model for cost and performance, how do you describe the trade-off?
JT: The value proposition is that you’re completely changing how you look at data. Most of our prospects have computers and databases that are literally their plant and equipment. It’s their factory. When they see empirical tests showing that things can be so much faster on commodity hardware rather than a proprietary box, they’re very excited. We have conversations about selling software, conversations about appliances and also many conversations about offering it as a service. To us, it’s really the same bundle of value, and the customer decides how they want it delivered.
DMR: How do you avoid competing with yourself among your partners?
JT: We’re part of the market continuum, and customers will have their own preferences for their own reasons. If a customer wants a Sun or HP or IBM-based appliance, that’s fine with us. If they want one of our DaaS services but want to own the hardware in their data center, that’s fine with us also. It is part of our positioning to offer a stream of value for all of our customers.
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