Palantir & Google:
What is Palantir?
Palantir is not a “data broker” or “data aggregator.”
Microsoft Competition:
Palantir & Google:
Palantir Technologies Inc. said today it has made its big-data platform Foundry available on Google Cloud Platform and the Google Cloud Marketplace, giving more companies the opportunity to synthesize information for business operations.
Using Foundry, companies can quickly build 360-degree views of key business objects and leverage business applications to drive more effective decision making, Google explained in a blog post today. The benefit of Foundry on Google Cloud is that companies will then be able to tap numerous services to enhance their data analytics operations.
For instance, a retailer would be able to implement Foundry’s inventory management workflows with Google Cloud’s Recommendations AI forecasting service to predict when popular items will go out of stock. That will help them adapt to supply chain disruptions, Google said. Moreover, by centralizing all of its data on sales, inventory and promotions in Foundry, grocery stores can reduce food waste and generate higher profits.
In a second example, Google said banks can use Foundry with Google Cloud’s services to better detect fraud and money laundering activities by aggregating their transaction data into a single repository. Google Cloud will provide the artificial intelligence tools needed to analyze this data to find patterns that might recognize illicit transactions.
Google Cloud elaborated on some other potential integrations too. For instance, customers can use Foundry with Google BigQuery to create a single source of truth for data-driven decision making.
In addition, Foundry’s HyperAuto capabilities for SAP HANA integrate with Google Cloud’s Cortex Foundation with native BigQuery connectors. Through this, customers can bring SAP-based data into Cortex Framework and implement it through a robust reference architecture, so it can be analyzed and managed on Google Cloud.
What is Palantir?
Palantir aims to be the central operating system for an organisations data. But, what does this actually mean?
- This is broken into 4 main areas by management.
- Firstly, through Palantir software, one can “drag & drop” certain tools, features, & partnered applications onto the project. This can be done fluently, meaning that the tools, features & applications communicate & work in conjunction with each other. As well as Palantir having innate tools (data visualization, AI, ML, ontology) within their platform, one can also leverage these innate tools, & use them in conjunction with partnered features & tools in order to derive the most value.
- Orchestrate & bind the IT landscape together. This means that, instead of replacing old data systems & tools within the organisation. Through Palantir, organisations can intertwine their own bespoke data systems & tools, in conjunction with more modern tools & applications – & overall use these in communication with each other.
- Network effects refers to the low code, no code environment of Palantir OS. This enables anyone & everyone in the organisation to use the platform, create new applications & features, regardless of technical ability. Changes can be shared across the organisation, revealing how the product becomes more useful as more people use it.
- Contextual data. Data is transformed into people, places, & things – which makes the data come to life.
Palantir is not a “data broker” or “data aggregator.”
“Palantir has often been described as a secretive company. There is some truth to this. For many years, we primarily served institutions with exceptional confidentiality expectations in fields like defence and intelligence. Palantir had little choice but to remain silent about our work, even when misunderstandings about the nature of the business appeared in the media or in the public sphere.”
Unlike many tech companies, the Palantir business model is not based on the monetisation of personal data. Palantir does not collect, store, or sell personal data. Palantir does not use personal data to train proprietary AI or machine learning models to share or resell to other customers. Palantir never facilitates the movement of data between clients, except where those specific clients have entered into an agreement with each other.
“Palantir builds digital infrastructure for data-driven operations and decision making. Our products serve as the connective tissue between an organisation’s data, its analytics capabilities, and operational execution. Palantir’s platforms tie these together by bringing the right data to the people who need it, allowing them to take data-driven decisions, conduct sophisticated analytics, and refine operations through feedback. We license this software to organisations, who receive secure and unique instances of our platforms in which to conduct their own work on their own data.”
This infrastructure helps organisations bring the right data together at the right time to answer complex questions and make intelligent decisions. This is particularly valuable when existing systems are fragmented, and essential information is held in silos that can’t communicate with each other.
Healthcare organisations, for instance, have used the Palantir software to tackle challenges like efficiently allocating PPE supplies when thousands of hospitals across the country have radically different and constantly changing levels of supply and demand for each item of PPE.
“With regards to customer data, Palantir acts as a data processor, not a data controller. Our software and services are used under direction from the organisations that license our products: these organisations define what can and cannot be done with their data; they control the Palantir accounts in which analysis is conducted; and any Palantir engineers that assist them in their work follow these directions.”
Palantir does not and cannot reuse or transfer our clients’ data for our own purposes.
“Attempting to profit from customer data in this way would be illegal and would undermine the trust that is necessary to work in the sensitive environments in which we have built our business, said the company”.
Microsoft Competition:
This comes after perceived Microsoft competition entered the market last moth more aggressivley.
Microsoft will be competing aggressively against Palantir for this contract.
Microsoft are building a platform to aid the fragmentation between databases, analytics, and governance via the “intelligent data platform.” This is an effort to bring the company’s existing database, analytics and governance services closer together.
“This is about bringing all of our data products together into one fabric so you as developers can shift focus towards creativity instead of spending time on governance”, said CEO Satya Nadella. Interestingly, this calls into question the focus on interoperability of third party solutions, in which is common within the Palantir OS. Microsoft seem to solely want to integrate all of their products together into one fabric, in comparison to enabling interoperability of third party solutions, like Palantir.
Furthermore, the product enables a seamless data platform, in which can empower organizations to invest more time into creating value rather than integrating and managing their data estate.
The 3 main principles that this product is focused upon is, integration of:
Databases
Analytics
Governance
Microsoft & Palantir have competed beforehand for the SkyWise contract. Whilst Microsoft had the original contract with Boeing, for a platform analytics software in order to empower data to create insights, Palantir 2 years later managed to replace Microsoft as the dominant OS system for Skywise.
