In December, Microsoft acquired Metanautix, a Palo Alto startup founded by Google and Facebook veterans Theo Vassilakis and Toli Lerios that emerged from stealth with $7M in Series A funding in August 2014. Metanautix delivers a SQL interface for querying relational and non-relational datasets that dispenses with the need to integrate disparate data sources. Metanautix’s Quest platform brings the power of distributed computing alongside the simplicity of SQL to enable companies to concurrently ingest, analyze and visualize data from multiple datasets and data repositories. Metanautix’s platform shortens the time between data acquisition and data analysis by helping analysts understand the topography of the data within scope and subsequently enabling SQL queries to run against Hadoop, NoSQL and relational databases. The acquisition bolsters Microsoft’s portfolio of big data analytic tools and promises to fit into Microsoft’s SQL Server and Cortana Analytics Suite. Importantly, Microsoft’s acquisition of Metanautix illustrates the evolution of the concept of the traditional enterprise data warehouse given that platforms such as Metanautix empower customers to obtain 360 degree analytics by means of distributed, SQL-based queries, analytics and data visualizations, without the requirement to integrate and house all data within a single, unified warehouse or repository.
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