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Netezza Corp. of Marlborough has entered into a development deal with Japanese technology giant NEC Corp. under which the two companies will co-develop NEC-branded data warehouse appliances that will first be sold in Japan and the Asia Pacific region, but eventually will be marketed by NEC worldwide.
The move is just part of what will be a growing trend in the industry of partnering or consolidation to compete with the newly unified Oracle Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., according to Netezza CEO Jim Baum.
“My sense is that this is a step, and one of probably many steps, you will see in the industry where large vendors are working on strategies to compete against Oracle,” he said.
Under the deal, Netezza (NYSE: NZ) will supply its streaming architecture and analytical database software, and NEC will combine that with its blade server and storage platforms. The first joint product already has a name — the InfoFrame DWH Appliance — and it should reach the market by April.
While no financial details of the deal were disclosed, NEC will manufacture, sell and distribute the jointly developed data warehouse appliances, according to Netezza officials. NEC has been a reseller of Netezza’s products since 2006.
In the second half of last year, Netezza held a road show promoting its newest appliance, TwinFin, which was the company’s first foray into basing its technology on blade servers, in the case of TwinFin, mostly from Intel Corp. At the time, CEO Jim Baum disclosed the company was moving forward aggressively with a partnering strategy. Baum today called this new move a validation of that plan.
“We feel pretty good about this,” he said. “It’s a big win for us and it’s a big endorsement of the strategy. It accomplishes what we need to do for the company, which is to expand our footprint globally and vertically.”
While Baum wouldn’t give out any details of the deal or speculation about its effect on Netezza, he did say that it was preceded by the addition of some engineering talent needed to get the product developed and would likely mean some growth in Asia.
“In order to support that, we will add resources in Asia, specifically some in Japan and some in China,” he said.
Netezza, which lists approximately 400 employees, had two profitable quarters to end 2009, reporting a combined $1.6 million in net income for the second half of the year on revenue of $91.7 million.
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