Thread regarding Teradata Corp. layoffs

@Fkr83d7-fwzf : Thank you for commenting, its interesting to see the view from the "other" side.

This is ironic, since a lot of our business comes from replacing traditional data warehouses, actually.

I am glad that you have mentioned this, it is something that Teradata as a company doesn't really seem to understand. You have two parts of the organization that are actively cannibalizing each other.

How could you possibly be confident in this belief?

I am not the original author but i have personally not met or heard of a single Apache contributor from Teradata or ThinkBig. I have also not seen a single non-sponsored talk at a major BigData event.

I haven't had much interaction with international tbh, but it sounds like a complete mess.

International has grown too fast, too quickly and quality as a result has suffered.

As much as Teradata folks seem to not understand Think Big, we equally don't understand Teradata.

This is a classic sign of a Stovepipe organization where the flow of information within the organization up-down through lines of control is restricted , inhibiting or preventing cross-organizational communication.

One reason for this is the people who make decisions about acquisition of software or consultants are usually not the ones who have regular interaction with it. So a large part of their decision is driven by how this is described on paper i.e. a feature check-list. Feature check-lists by definition look good. Reality of course is always different.

@Fkr83d7-fwzf

Awesome post!

You said: "We hired a new director of recruiting and he just quit". Does this have to do with resistance to taking RIF talent from Teradata?

Feel like I should give my opinion, since I'm a Think Big consultant. Some of us stumbled on this thread and had a bit of a laugh, partially because some of it is stuff we're frustrated with too, and some other stuff is just blatantly false.

Breaking down the barriers between the traditional data warehouse and big data

Yeah I have no idea what this means either. I don't know how TB is supposed to fit into the larger Teradata EDW vision; we're kind of just keeping on doing what we were doing before the acquisition. This is ironic, since a lot of our business comes from replacing traditional data warehouses, actually.

What consulting approach? There is no "approach" here. It is no-better than your run of the mill body shopping organization.

There actually is a pretty well-defined approach, and we specifically avoid body-shop engagements. There have been multiple instances where we turned down clients because they just wanted bodies. We do project-oriented engagements, typically agile development, follow known architecture patterns, known project timelines, etc, etc

Not one of the Think Big consultant (here in the U.S, at least) is either a contributor, committer or Apache PMC member.

How could you possibly be confident in this belief? I am a Think Big consultant and an Apache Hadoop contributor.

Not one of the TB projects has resulted in a strategic change of direction at a customer site.

Depends how you define strategic change of direction, but I can think of a few examples of this.

Its very hard for TD to attract quality Big Data consultants. I can count on my fingers the number of good consultants in this area.

Yeah, hiring has certainly declined, hard. I have no idea how we plan on attracting talent in the future. We hired a new director of recruiting and he just quit.

No better in International.

I haven't had much interaction with international tbh, but it sounds like a complete mess. My guess is they're probably just trying to get as many people as quickly as possible and so have made a bunch of questionable hires. To be fair, it's extremely new for TB. One year ago, we had zero international presence. But yeah, it sounds pretty shaky.

In International there is no Think Big and there doesn't seem to be an attempt to grow it yet.

There's definitely a huge attempt to grow it, but it's still early days, and it sounds like there's a lot of turmoil.

Their consultants have no clue about what teradata clients are looking for.

100% agree. As much as Teradata folks seem to not understand Think Big, we equally don't understand Teradata. Like I said, for now we're just kind of continuing to do what we had been doing pre-acquisition.

Just declaring yourself a consulting firm won't do, you gotta show your market differentiation from the usual stuff

For a while, we were differentiating by being the only pure-services, pure-big-data consulting company. In the early days, we also had a really high caliber of engineers and consultants, and I think rightfully got some serious industry cred for being big data experts. Whether we've managed to continue hiring top-notch consultants and maintain that reputation is probably debatable...

Aster has a really impressive library though.

Firstly it isn't complete, there's a few good stuff that other comparable analytic apps don't have but there's also a lot of basic stuff that isn't there. Secondly, there's second dimension to that: is it impressive enough to justify its cost? The libraries alone will not make people line up to buy it.

But going back to Think Big - where are the analytic services? Or is that what Lancet and Claraview are for remember those acquisitions? Just declaring yourself a consulting firm won't do, you gotta show your market differentiation from the usual stuff. Unfortunately for TDC, its consulting and services practice is dependent on the hardware sales. So it's back to that problem...

@Fkr83d7-ggo Aster has a really impressive library though.

To the outside world, Aster looks like a SQL engine with machine learning libraries

Great point

#Thinkbig sucks. Their consultants have no clue about what teradata clients are looking for. It's a big mistake by Teradata management buying this shitshack company.

Presto has nothing to do with Aster. These are two completely different products and technologies with 2 very different use-cases.

Only inside TDC. To the outside world, Aster looks like a SQL engine with machine learning libraries - both of which you can get for free or at a smaller cost - say with presto and apache greenplum. Aster runs on MapReduce - which again inside TDC is quite ok but to the outside world feels outdated. This needs serious rebranding, packaging, and positioning.

its role in Hadoop is redundant if you have Presto.

Presto has nothing to do with Aster. These are two completely different products and technologies with 2 very different use-cases.

On the other hand, there is a significant amount of investment needed to be credible in the consulting world - especially for Big Data.

This is a very good point. To be credible in the Big Data world Teradata/ThinkBig must have the right mix of people. Where are the consultants who can go toe to toe with the best in the business? What we have instead are resources who have managed to crib a few articles and jumped onto the Big Data bandwagon with no grounding. This is especially true of the ThinkBig recruits in International.

Does it mean making Aster the same as any other Hadoop product?

Requires a lot of thought. Aster as a solution is not as widely known or marketed and in another thread it's already been mentioned that its role in Hadoop is redundant if you have Presto.

However, this is actually one area of opportunity that TDC has if it wants to make it in consulting. Get deep into analytics - something the IBMs Accentures SAPs and Oracles aren't strong at either.

Getting into cloud is another way out - and the main post mentioned it is about getting into the mid-market. Maybe TDC has no choice but to expand into a new territory, but its service model and pricing is tuned towards mega major enterprises.

Think Big is only "Big" in the US. In International there is no Think Big and there doesn't seem to be an attempt to grow it yet. I can understand the attempt though - the days of DWH are eventually numbered and transitioning to a consulting model might give TDC a way out. On the other hand, there is a significant amount of investment needed to be credible in the consulting world - especially for Big Data. Both IBM and Accenture for example are stacking up armies of consultants around their Digital and Watson practices - Think Big is toast compared to these. TDC needs to up the game if it wants to survive here. On the platform front - the Hadoop knowledge is definitely in short supply. Finally in Analytics - TB is pretty much zero here.

No better in International. we took one of the new Think Big EXPERT to an established acount.

The result was chaos , he had no focus or sales direction and lost credibiity when the customer asked him basic \hadoop questions