Cloud rivals Cloudera and Hortonworks have finalized their merger this week in an all-stock deal. First announced in October 2018, the two public companies merged at a $3 billion combined valuation, in the wake of mega open-source acquisitions by IBM (Red Hat, $34 billion), Microsoft (GitHub, $7.5 billion) and Salesforce (Mulesoft, $6.5 billion) in 2018. The joining of the two market leading vendors of Hadoop open-source software will generate bolstered resources to viably compete with Amazon Web Services.
In digital marketing news this week, Google announced that more than 50% of search results are now displayed using mobile-first indexing worldwide. Two years since moving towards mobile-first indexing, this is the first time Google has passed more than half of SERPs being shown using mobile-first indexing. Google suggests site owners test pages for structured dataso the search engine can highlight their page in search results, as well as ensure that any structured data on desktop translates to mobile.
The e-commerce world this week is seeing Amazon and Flipkart team up in an effort to influence a new e-commerce policy in India which barred the two platforms from selling their own products or products from companies in which they have equity. Now, Amazon and Flipkart plan to bring together industry bodies and investors to discuss the new policy with the Indian government. A favorable outcome would see the platforms regain their abilities to run promotional sales days, sell products for entities in which they hold a stake and form exclusive partnerships with online sellers.
New in display advertising business listings this week we have a $88.4K criminal locator database, with one of the largest databases of prisons and jails in the US, revenues diversified across two profitable portfolio websites, strong traffic with over 110,000 sessions in the L3M, keyword rankings for c.58,000 cumulative keywords, low owner involvement and highly scalable cost structure. If you are interested this business, please follow the link to request a prospectus.
In events news, FE International is looking forward to hosting LTV Conf, coming April 3-4 2019 to New York City! North America’s leading SaaS conference will be held at Convene West 46th St, and is an event not to miss. Up to 400 invited SaaS Founders, Executives and Investors from private and public companies will be in attendance making this the perfect place to learn and make new connections. The speaker line up is soon to be announced, but it is fair to say: it is the best line up yet! Tickets have yet to be launched publicly but can currently be found on the website for 75% off full price. Discounts are offered to bigger groups, so make sure to bring your team. Founder Thomas Smale’s conference schedule for the new year is already set for a busy start. Thomas’ is headed to Affiliate Summit West on January 6-8 where he is looking forward to meeting up with industry experts and valued clients! If you are planning on attending either or will be in the area, reply to this email to set up a meeting!
Continue reading below for more on Cloudera’s and Hortonworks’ merger, Google’s mobile-first indexing updates and Flipkart and Amazon joining forces.
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In The News…
Cloudera and Hortonworks Merger Closes
Cloudera and Hortonworks have moved from being competitors to merging into one entity as they seek to take on AWS in their $3 billion merger.
Cloudera and Hortonworks are the leading vendors of the open-source software library Hadoop, which utilizes a network to help users store, process, analyze and troubleshoot vast quantities of data. The two companies had been competitors until the merger was announced in October 2018, when they made the decision to cease competitive spending, and instead join forces to take on Amazon Web Services. At the merger’s official close this week, the combined valuation of the companies stands at $3 billion. Set to continue under the entity name Cloudera, the joined companies used the merger to combat declining stock value for 2018. Last year, which saw most cloud computing companies’ stocks increase, left Cloudera shares down 33% and Hortonworks 29%. Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly said in an interview, “The big competitor for us is Amazon, with their house offerings. We’re gearing up to take on Amazon.” As open-source software grows, more cloud companies are using M&A to capitalize on inorganic growth opportunities and the Cloudera-Hortonworks merger continues this theme set by big players in 2018, including IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.
AWS has reportedly invested heavily in databases to support cloud storage for customers, and their services include Elastic MapReduce.
Google Announces Mobile-First Indexing Surpasses 50% of SERPs
Google has announced that for the first time, a majority of SERPs worldwide are indexed mobile-first.
Rather than Google’s bots prioritizing desktop versions of pages on sites to determine their ranking and relevance, the bots prioritize mobile version of the same pages in a more than 50% majority to determine how high it ranks on the page. While Google has deployed mobile-first indexing for two years at this point, this is, significantly, the first time more than half of the pages shown in search results are ranked overall based on the mobile version of the page. Before being moved to mobile indexing, Google tests a site to ensure it is ready, and then notifies the owner through Search Console. Google advises testing structured data to better understand how content on your pages is displayed, as this affects the search engine’s ability to display and highlight page data within the search results itself.
In the announcement, Google provided relevant links for testing structured data and alt-text to ensure sites are optimized.
Amazon and Flipkart Speak Out
Following new regulations by the Indian government around e-commerce guidelines, Amazon and Flipkart are reportedly coming together to speak out against the updates.
India recently revised their Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy to prohibit e-commerce businesses from forming exclusive agreements with partners, selling products in which they have an equity stake and running promotional days. In a plan that reportedly involves major stakeholders and investors like SoftBank, Tiger Global, Sequoia and organizations like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and other industry bodies, the two e-commerce giants intend to oppose the new regulations. If e-commerce incumbents are disallowed from selling products through other vendors in which they have a stake, it may become necessary to entirely upset the supply chain process. A report in favor of the e-commerce companies argues that the legislation does not even the e-commerce playing field, but rather removes competition for local traders as a strategic appeasement ahead of the 2019 General Elections scheduled in India. Concerns around job losses are also circulating as Amazon and Flipkart may be forced to consider reducing operations.
Amazon and Flipkart reportedly have a combined inventory of Rs 5,000 crore together, and if the legislation goes into effect, the “Republic Day” sale will likely be the last big promotion the companies can run.
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