Kaveh Mossavati, CEO of leading European SI and reseller CME/emergent-I looks at what's hot in his region and why he thinks expressor is part of the new class of "6GL" tools that are changing the market.
Q: As a leading SI and reseller to large organizations across Europe, I'm sure you have a good sense of the data integration industry's "pulse" in your region. What's the latest trend in DI in Europe?
A: Everybody's talking about the importance of data quality within the context of data integration. Companies have realized that you need to close any data gaps before you build applications because they only slow you down if addressed later in the process.
Q: What does expressor offer to solve this problem?
A: Closing these gaps manually every time you build a new application is very costly and time-consuming. expressor's semantic rationalization process correlates physical metadata to common business definitions that can be used in multiple applications — saving the user time and expense up-front and in subsequent applications.
Q: So you see an opportunity for expressor in Europe?
A: Absolutely. Apart from its technical advantages, I believe expressor is building a successful business model here in Europe by offering high-touch sales, service and support through leading SIs and resellers such as CME and emergent-i. I know of one other US-based provider of high-performance DI solutions that doesn't even offer support here. Just scheduling a demo can be arduous, and when you do, they conduct it via Webex That may work elsewhere or for other purposes, but not in a sales evaluation here in Europe. We have sophisticated, demanding users who need to see and feel a product before they buy it.
Of course, any product that offers a "new way" of doing things always faces obstacles. expressor is radically different — and some users can be "put off" initially by that kind of unfamiliarity, including a few people at our own company! But to me, the fact that expressor is so different is a very good thing. We need to break from the "old way" to solve those persistent data quality problems.
Q: What other companies are doing this today — breaking the mold?
A: We also like the approaches taken by Panopticon and SpotFire, which is why we offer them in a bundle with expressor. I look at all of these products as "6GL" solutions. I'd never bundle any of them with a previous-generation product. That just doesn't make sense.