Disruption is the nature of business.  

On December 18, news emerged that Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. and Insight Partners will acquire Alteryx and make it a privately held company. This shift in the data analytics landscape coincides with a major shift in the simulation market with the acquisition of Ansys by Synopsys, which I recently wrote about. Having been in business for nearly four decades, Altair has seen markets change many times, including the main sectors we specialize in: AI, data, simulation, and high-performance computing (HPC). 

But irrespective of how many times markets change, Altair stands ready to meet any challenge or market transformation by leveraging the computational intelligence legacy we’ve built around the globe.

The pillars underpinning Altair’s strong position are our company culture and customer-first mentality, our exceptional technology offering, our Altair Units business model, and our philosophy of open solutions. All this gives customers the means to scale freely and flexibly while slashing what they would be paying within our competitions’ licensing models. Let me expand upon what makes Altair’s data analytics offering – the Altair® RapidMiner® platform – so unique.

Unparalleled Technological Breadth in Data

Our offering in the data analytics space goes much further than one product or a small group of products – it is a complete, holistic offering that meshes adjacent technologies for a better, more powerful platform, all under our unique Altair Units licensing model. We play in so many areas of advanced computational intelligence – including AI and machine learning, data science, digital twin technology, and more – while also providing a seamless, unified, open architecture for it all. 

We empower both domain experts and coding data scientists to unlock the power of data, regardless of expertise. Altair RapidMiner bridges the gap, allowing you to leverage both synthetic and real-world data seamlessly with an integrated, end-to-end experience that is easy to learn and use.

The Altair RapidMiner platform includes proven tools like: 

• Altair® Monarch®: For easy, automated data extraction, preparation, integration, and transformation.
• Altair® Knowledge Studio®: For exploratory data analysis using interactive decision trees, strategy trees, and scorecards.
• Altair® Panopticon™: For limitless data visualization, at any velocity or volume.
• Altair Analytics Workbench™: For developing production analytics code, even mixing, matching, and cross-developing in Python, R, and the SAS language.
• Altair® AI Studio™: For democratizing data through no-code AutoAI and visual workflow development.
• Altair® AI Cloud™: For unifying and centralizing enterprise analytics environments through collaboration, orchestration, deployment, governance, project management, and accountability.

And woven throughout Altair RapidMiner is Altair SLC™  – the market’s only alternative SAS language compiler and interpreter that runs programs written in the SAS language – which bridges the gap between established analytics estates and modern tooling. 

In all, Altair gives all organizations the power to tackle their toughest data transformation and business intelligence challenges with next-generation features like easy to deploy generative AI functions. Simply put, no other company offers this level of breadth and depth.

Other capabilities that make our offering unique include the way we integrate data analytics and HPC. For example, we have integrated Altair® PBS Professional® – part of Altair® HPCWorks™, our HPC and cloud platform – with Altair RapidMiner, which includes Kubernetes-based technology that allows for scaling in the cloud, which is especially relevant for organizations that have large jobs or scaling needs. 

On top of all this sits the best data analytics training and support methodology in the market: the Altair Center of Excellence (CoE). The CoE is an established and repeatable process that gives individuals, teams, and organizations the power to understand and implement data principles, tools, and approaches. It is the ultimate expression of our commitment to democratization and upskilling. The CoE upskills anyone to the point where they can utilize basic data analysis and data science skills and techniques, even if they do not have a data background. 

Altair Units and Our Diversified Business Model

On the business side of the equation, our position is strong in data analytics thanks to our patented Altair Units licensing model. Altair Units is the market’s premier licensing system – none of our competitors offer licensing that matches the flexibility, freedom, and value our model delivers. 

Altair Units give organizations full, instant access to more than 200 Altair and partner products that they can run on-demand locally, in the cloud, or in a hybrid setup. With our licensing, customers often save anywhere from 30-50% compared to their old software vendors. In a market where organizations and leaders are tired of incessant price increases for their software, Altair Units are the best way to maximize spend.

Final Thoughts

Altair is well-positioned moving into 2024 and beyond, no matter how the data analytics market – or other markets – may shift and evolve. We are structured for success and have the tools, talent, and business approach to help our customers tackle any challenges that come their way. Altair is a strong independent company and I look forward to what the future holds for Altair and our customers.