HPE has acquired the business assets of struggling data platform MapR for an undisclosed fee, the company has announced.
The deal includes MapR's intellectual property and its work with AI, machine learning and analytics data management. HPE will also take on MapR customers and partners who it will support with their existing deployments and ongoing renewals.
The announcement comes at a critical time for MapR, with staff layoffs announced in May and investors pulling funds from the struggling data analytics company. It had previously reached unicorn status, with backing from Google Capital, as a specialist in big data analytics. But poor financial estimates forced the firm to change strategy and look for a suitor.
HPE said that the acquisition will deliver the foundation for a next-generation edge-to-cloud AI/ML and analytics data pipeline.
"The explosion of data is creating a new era of intelligence where the winners will be the ones who harness the power of data, wherever it lives," said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE.
"MapR's file system technology enables HPE to offer a complete portfolio of products to drive artificial intelligence and analytics applications and strengthens our ability to help customers manage their data assets end to end, from edge to cloud."
Following the announcement by HPE, MapR released a short statement thanking its customers and reassuring them of HPE's "innovative" track record.
"This transaction allows HPE to accelerate capabilities for the Intelligent Data Platform and positions HPE as a strategic partner to help customers leverage AI/ML and Analytics to achieve data-driven business outcomes," MapR's statement said. "HPE's recent moves in this space are in tune with the market's need for a data platform to support digital transformation, the emergence of Edge-to-Cloud architectures, and the explosion of data driving new and autonomous use cases in industries like transportation, energy, and medicine."
"Our community now has the opportunity to become part of HPE's broad ecosystem. HPE plans to support existing deployments along with ongoing renewals. And, together with HPE we can innovate and develop hybrid cloud and AI solutions with the ability to better support customers worldwide."
