Salesforce.com (ticker: CRM) announced Monday that it will buy Tableau Software (DATA) for about $15.7 billion in stock. That got investors wondering: Which data analytics firms could be next?
CitiGroup laid that out in a note to clients. Here are the companies its researchers think could be the next targets.
• Alteryx (AYX). According to CitiGroup, the Irvine, Calif.-based computer software company is a high strategic fit for both IBM (IBM) and Microsoft(MSFT). For IBM, the researchers said Alteryx “checks a lot of boxes” and could provide IBM with developers and end users to attract people to IBM/Watson’s analytics products. Alteryx also has synergies with Microsofts’s analytics offerings and could attract developer’s to its Azure cloud-computing service. Oracle, SAP, Alphabet, and Amazon were all ranked as medium strategic fits to acquire Alteryx.
• Talend (TLND) could also be a high strategic fit for IBM because it “supplements IBM’s legacy integration business” with its big-data and cloud focus. For that reason, CitiGroup also sees Oracle as a similar fit. Microsoft and SAP could be medium-level fits.
• MongoDB (MDB) isn’t a high or medium strategic fit for anyone, but is still ranked third overall. The researchers note that MongoDB has “a strong developer following and popular alternative data architecture.”
• Elastic (ESTC) was fifth overall, prior to Tableau’s sale. With Tableau off the table, the researchers see Microsoft as the best overall fit for Elastic, but a medium strategic fit overall. The researchers noted that “logging and search could supplement Azure capabilities.” They said that Elastic would also align with Github and Microsoft's open-source business.
• Cloudera (CLDR) could be a medium-level fit for Oracle, CitiGroup wrote. Its “enterprise-focused” and balanced proprietary versus open source.
• Both MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Teradata (TDC) are listed, but the researches don’t see either as better than a lower strategic fit at best, and “not a good fit” at worst. MicroStrategy is ranked a lower fit for IBM, Oracle and SAP because all three could consolidate the market for their competing products. Teradata’s only lower fit listed is Oracle.
