Ingres rebrands as Actian in 'big data' push

Database specialist Ingres has rebranded in an attempt to highlight its efforts in the large-scale data analytics and management space.

The company, now known as Actian, will focus on 'big data' applications that allow customers to analyse and interact with information in large-scale databases.

Greg Wood, chief financial officer at Actian, told V3 that, while the company will continue to develop and maintain the Ingres database, the spotlight will be on its Cloud Action Platform and line of Action Apps.

"The Ingres database is well recognised and we will continue to support it, but at the same time that brand was more associated with an older-generation technology," he said.

"We think Actian better reflects where we are going as a company, particularly the application strategy."

Wood explained that Actian will expand on the emerging field of big data applications by adding functionality for end users. These small, specialised applications integrate with data analytics tools, providing alerts and actions when various conditions are spotted in a database.

"If people are going to get value out of their data, they have to start automating the actions," Wood said.

"Instead of business intelligence, where you take snapshots at points in time, Action Apps will always be on. As there are changes in the data, you will get notifications and actions will be prompted."

Wood explained that Actian will initially develop Action Apps for customers through the company's services branch, but that the long-term goal is to build an ecosystem.

The company hopes to enlist third-party developers, and will open a public application store and a platform for large corporations to create private application download services.

"We think the missing element is that the data is getting bigger and bigger but customers don't know what to do with it," Wood said.

"The last mile is what we think is missing: the ability to automate actions based on that insight into the data."