Datonix SpA: making data exploitation simple, effective and accurate

Co-founder Luciano Riccio has developed deep knowledge in managing complex projects in CRM, data warehouse, and data integration space. In addition, he specializes in architectural design, implementation, and evolution of client/server and Web-enabled applications. 

Datonix, as a Company has been established in 2014, while the development of the product datonix started in 2002. It has designed an “All Inclusive” data management appliance, datonixOne, offered as a physical or virtual appliance which makes the handling of BIGDATA easy and reliable for their customers. 

Candid Q&A with Luciano Riccio, Key Executive

Why was the company set up?

The datonix project was born with the idea to invent a new media optimized for the collection, storage, processing and movement of data.

In 2003, the first version of the datonix underlying technology was ready to be tested. It was called the Arithmetic Data Cube (ADC). The results were quite positive, so the founders continued to invest in the research of algorithmic approaches to process large dataset distributed over a grid of computers. 

In 2006, the version 2 of the datonix tech was ready to be tested. The name was changed to Arithmetic Data Complex. Today, ADC is a unique fractal processing of data. It implements automatic Data Discovery and archive of Data.

Tell us about your first product that was launched.

In 2014, after 8 years of code development we released datonixOne. It is a Self Service platform for end-users, which introduces new concepts for Self Service Data Preparation. By using datonixOne, it is possible to convert input raw data into a SMART DATA STORE, which has been called the QueryObject Dataset. Query Objects are lean, secure, binary portable, open to be queried, and ready to be blended with dark data, internet data, cloud data, and machine data distributed over a grid or a network of data. 

How successful was your first project roll on? Share the experience.

The first datonixOne was commercialized to a famous Telecommunication company. The product was adopted to move time consuming Data Integration activities from the IT System Integration to the Business Consulting. 

Specifically, supply chain data coming from several SAP instances installed worldwide were normalized and consolidated to offer a holistic view of the spending process. The business consultants assigned to the data stewardship were able to acquire the know-how in a few weeks and the first version of the application was deployed in 3 months. 

How have the responses from your consumers motivated you to shape your offerings?

When we launched dataonixOne, we were sure to have a competitive general purpose solution for Big Data Integration, but we realized that the market priority was just Data Analysis. As a consequence, we shaped our offerings according to three main directions: 

• Positioning: Datonix was positioned as a data integration middleware between the database/data lake and the BI-analytics.
• Product Offering: We implemented new versions of the product, the personal edition and the Cloud edition.
• Business Model: We extended the initial on-premises model with a new SaaS model, where license of our product is offered together with our consulting services. 

What were the grounds on which you have expanded your company and its offerings over the years?

Three are the directions we follow to evolve our organization:

• Develop best of breed tools to prepare data stories.
• Extreme tailoring! We develop background personalized solutions for our clients.
• We don’t sell tools and leave, we make them work. 

If you have to list five factors that have been/ are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?

• The Team: We are expert technology developers with strong technology commitment..
• The IPR: The IPR is solid, innovative and flexible.
• The Product: DatonixOne is easy to use, solid, effective and shows incredible computing performances.
• The Positioning: We enable a very important transformation for the data driven enterprise: move data integration capabilities from the IT System Integration to the Business Consulting.
• The partner network: Though not consolidated at international level, the network of partners is starting up. 

What do you feel are the reasons behind your product popularity and consistent organization growth?

Since we have just finished our roll out phase, we’re investing in marketing and branding now. Our company is small but our product is well known in special niches like IT innovation due to good results achieved on single projects. Also our product matches the following customer priorities: data integration, data preparation, data recovery, data journalism

Do you have any new products ready to be/getting ready to be rolled out into the market?

During the last 2 years, we have realized that our data processing capabilities are important, but what makes the difference at the end of the day is the way we tell the story of the data. We realized that in order to improve a Data Driven culture in the organizations and departments, people need to interact with the data. This way we developed Andi, which is our Data Journalism portal, useful to build data stories, share charts, dashboards, KPI, video and docs between teams, departments and companies. Andi is Wordpress based and totally open source.

The man who made Datonix SpA possible: Co-founder and COO, Luciano Riccio    

Luciano Riccio, COO & Co-founder: Before datonix, Luciano started CrossZ Software Italia in 1998. Luciano has developed deep knowledge in managing complex projects in CRM, data warehouse, and data integration space. In addition, he specializes in architectural design, implementation, and evolution of client/server and Web-enabled applications. Luciano Riccio holds a bachelor degree in Electronic Engineering from the Politecnico of Naples University.

“Growing is never easy. It takes effort and hard work. Defining each strategy, planning a time schedule for every action and acquiring the right people can be a success factor of your initiative.”