Tag: MDB (Page 2 of 3)

Examining Application Data Platforms – Part 1

July 29, 2021 / poffringa

At their recent user conference, MongoDB positioned themselves as the first “Application Data Platform”. Their vision is to address all data storage workloads that developers typically need to build a modern, scalable software application. The scope of this goes far beyond their previous niche as a document-oriented database, to span caches, search indices, mobile app interfaces and even basic analytics for data visualizations. The premise is that developers prefer to focus on building features, versus worrying about data storage infrastructure. As cloud data solutions proliferate and IT roles converge, MongoDB wants to reduce overhead for developers through a unified data storage platform. Their goal is to increase developer productivity by eliminating the “tax on innovation”.

Evolving Architectures for Transactional Data Storage

January 18, 2021 / poffringa

Much has been written about how enterprises are awash in data, generating new signals at an accelerating rate. A lot of this focus has been on the data analytics and machine learning space, where arguably a large opportunity lies. Businesses are struggling to process all their data in order to gain new customer insights and improve performance. Recent IPOs like Snowflake, C3.ai and Palantir have driven investor interest and delivered valuations that reflect the huge potential.

While these opportunities in big data convergence, AI and advanced analytics are exciting, an equally significant evolution is happening on the transactional side of data storage and distribution. Models for data storage have moved far beyond a single large relational database housed on premise. Application architectures are evolving rapidly, with the return of rich clients, disparate device channels, an ecosystem of APIs and breaking up monoliths into micro-services. Cloud hosting and serverless have provided new ways to manage the runtimes that execute code. Software engineering roles have been coalescing, highlighted by the ascendancy of the developer and a bias towards productivity.

These forces are creating opportunities for emerging technology providers to capture developer mindshare and power application workloads. Cloud-based services have lowered the barrier to entry for launching new transactional data storage solutions. In the same way that Snowflake created a robust offering separate from the hyperscalers, independent data storage companies are thriving on the transactional side. This blog post provides investors with some background on application data storage technologies and an examination of trends in modern software architectures. It concludes with a survey of companies (several that are publicly traded) which stand to benefit as application workloads explode.

Independent Software Providers and the Cloud Vendors

July 26, 2020 / poffringa

Early in the evolution of cloud computing infrastructure, the cloud providers were rapidly expanding their offerings. For a while, it seemed they would leave no room for independent providers in a land grab to address every segment of software infrastructure. As the landscape has matured and enterprises increasingly implement a multi-cloud strategy, it has become clear that independent providers can not only co-exist, but thrive, in this environment. Examples are Datadog for observability, Twilio for communications, MongoDB for databases and Fastly for CDN.

This blog post examines the history of cloud service providers and the evolution of their offerings. As cloud vendors have defined broad categories of software services, they have left openings for nimble, focused independent software vendors to leverage the same cloud infrastructure to deliver substantially better product offerings in some segments. From this, we can draw observations about why they are succeeding and what they need to continue doing. Investors occasionally raise competitive concerns for independent software providers that cloud vendors will choose at some point to crush them. I posit that threat has passed in many categories. This post seeks to help investors understand what has changed and how to reason about the risks going forward for their favorite independent software company investments.

MongoDB (MDB) Stock Q1 FY2021 Earnings Results Review

June 28, 2020 / poffringa

MongoDB (MDB) released their Q1 (April end) FY2021 earnings report on June 4. They reported a significant beat for Q1, exceeding revenue estimates by 12% and improving profitability metrics. Guidance for the remainder of the year was mixed, with revenue targets raised slightly and profitability mostly inline. Most impressive was growth in the cloud offering, Atlas, which now contributes 42% of total revenue. MongoDB also released a number of product enhancements just after the earnings report, coinciding with their annual user event. MongoDB is continuing to expand their reach beyond a core database solution into ancillary functions that enable easy application of data to common use cases, like mobile apps, analytics, data visualization and search. In this post, I review MongoDB’s earnings results and other business updates. I also dig into the product releases and competitive landscape. For a refresher on the MongoDB investment thesis, please see my full analysis published in November of last year.

MongoDB (MDB) Q4 2020 Earnings Results Review

March 25, 2020 / poffringa

On March 17, MongoDB (MDB) released earnings results for Q4 FY 2020 and provided estimates for FY 2021. Q4 results far exceeded expectations. FY 2021 estimates were tempered by anticipated impact from COVID-19. They also announced a CTO leadership change. The market reacted the next day by initially spiking the stock price up 9.6%, but then closing down by 7.7% in a late day sell-off. A lot of the volatility can be attributed to COVID-19 market gyrations. Since then, the stock has recovered and is now trading about 23% above it’s pre-earnings price. Analyst reactions to the results were mixed, with expected price cuts due to the macro environment, but positive feedback for leadership’s transparency over headwinds in 2020 with COVID-19. Let’s take a detailed look at the results.

Insights from Microsoft Earnings Call

January 30, 2020 / poffringa

Microsoft reported FY20 Q2 earnings after the market close on January 29th. I won’t dig into Microsoft’s performance overall, as it is covered thoroughly by other analysts. However, within the earnings release and subsequent analyst call, there were some implications for smaller, niche software companies that may be useful for investors to consider.

MongoDB at Needham Growth Conference

January 20, 2020 / poffringa

On January 14, MongoDB (MDB) presented at the Needham Growth Conference. Michael Gordon, the CFO and COO, represented MongoDB. I always enjoy listening to Michael’s perspective because of his dual role – he can speak to both the financial position, as well as the business operations and long term strategy of the company. He has a strong grasp of the database landscape and how MongoDB offerings are positioned within it.

Listening to the presentation, I had a couple of take-aways. As readers know, I am long-term bullish on MongoDB. My optimism is driven by a few factors – 1) the overall size/growth of the data storage market, 2) the current “database refresh” occurring as a result of new app development and re-architecture of legacy systems, and 3) MongoDB’s popularity with developers and leading position in coding bootcamp curriculums.

MongoDB to Benefit from NoSQL Tailwinds

January 10, 2020 / poffringa

As readers know, I am long on MongoDB, making a purchase recommendation in Nov 2019 for a 5 year holding period. Growth will be driven by their rapidly expanding product offering in an enormous addressable market. The database product is developer-friendly and represents a popular choice for start-ups and new software projects. The pace of enterprise migrations is increasing as companies revisit their legacy database infrastructure and MongoDB expands into adjacent use cases, like search and data warehousing.

I recently came across an article and a podcast that further reinforced the growth of opportunities for “NoSQL” solutions relative to relational databases going into the future. I will share the salient points and provide some analysis of what these trends mean for MongoDB’s growth trajectory.

Implications of 2020 Priorities for CIOs

January 6, 2020 / poffringa

Back in December, CIO Magazine published an article listing the Top 5 strategic priorities for CIOs in 2020. Now that 2020 has started, we should examine how these priorities might impact the stock performance of related software stack companies. Focus on improvements in analytics, customer support and workforce automation are highlighted. Investment into these areas by enterprise IT organizations should drive demand for product offerings from several of our favorite software stack companies.

Insights from Sumo Logic’s Continuous Intelligence Report

December 23, 2019 / poffringa

Sumo Logic recently published their Continuous Intelligence Report, which details trends in application architecture, deployment processes and management tools in the cloud, based on observations across their 2,000 customers. By reviewing the data in this report, we can glean several insights for software stack company investments.

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