Another day, another acquisition! Microsoft has opened its purse again to buy BlueTalon, a startup that designs data access control solutions.
It continues the pattern of commercializing tools that fall outside the Microsoft technology stack.
This move comes months after the Redmond based technology titan bought Citus Data, which specializes in the PostgreSQL database. Redmond is now much active around data storage mechanisms that don’t actually involve its own SQL Server database software.
BlueTalon develops software that works with data stored in open source file system like Hadoop, Spark and PostgreSQL. People can run queries on sensitive data in order to make observations, all the while the actual underlying information stays hidden and is not revealed.
Rohan Kumar, corporate vice president for Azure Data at Microsoft talked about this:
“This acquisition will enhance our ability to empower enterprises across industries to digitally transform while ensuring right use of data with centralized data governance at scale through Azure.”
In a separate post, BlueTalon CEO Eric Tilenius also commented on how the acquisition came about:
“BlueTalon enterprise customers increasingly began to migrate more and more of their data to the cloud and asked us to support them in that process. As we began exploring partnership opportunities with various hyperscale cloud providers to better serve our customers, Microsoft deeply impressed us. The Azure Data team was uniquely thoughtful and visionary when it came to data governance. We found them to be the perfect fit for us in both mission and culture. So when Microsoft asked us to join forces, we jumped at the opportunity.”
Indeed.
And while terms of the deal were not described, BlueTalon folks have already joined the Azure Data Governance Group at Microsoft — the technology and team, both.
Data privacy has become an increasing cause for concern these days, what with every week seemingly bringing about news of hacks and controversies regarding how companies control consumer data.
In fact, the Redmond based technology company has already embraced the data estate marketing term, giving it a dedicated landing page that highlights how data is the new oil that is being harvested by applications and AI solutions.
Concerns surrounding how data is handled are, no doubt, acting as motivators for Microsoft.
