DataExpress – 2020 will be the year for cautious optimism!

The highlight of 2019 for us was DataExpress being acquired by what is now Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc, a public company. As of November 25, 2019, Data443 began trading under its new symbol – ATDS: All Things Data Security. Following the acquisition, DataExpress provided the fourth data related product in the Data443 product portfolio that now includes ClassiDocs (Classify your Data), ARALOC (Secure your Data), ARCMAIL (Archive your data) and DataExpress (Transfer your Data). Representing a comprehensive portfolio of products focused on data it is also focused on security, management and monitoring. In today’s data-driven world of IT, this focus ensures an enterprise’s IT has all the tools readily at hand to better integrate with business partners and external agencies, no matter the reason of the need for enterprise information.

With this transition of DataExpress into Data443 behind us, we are now looking at 2020. “To say we are cautiously optimistic is perhaps the best way to describe our expectations for the coming year,” said Data443 Engineering Manager, Billy Whittington. “We have new products and features already being deployed, as part of DataExpress NonStop (DXNS), with an upcoming new DataExpress Open Platform release (DXOP V7) about to ship. We are also exploring new partnerships even as we begin building a closer relationship with HPE. The coming year will see our presence at major events and symposiums becoming more visible as these forums have always provided us with the best opportunity there is to hear the business needs of our customers and prospects, what drives them drives us.”

Looking further ahead and deeper into 2020, DataExpress will continue to keep its focus on its NonStop product line, but increasingly the company is anticipating that it will be the Open Platform product line where we will really flourish! With add-on modules, such as multifactor authentication, dashboarding (for management oversight), different panels for different responsibilities, and enhanced reporting to drill down on real data from your own system telling you how many bytes you are moving, who are your biggest hitters within your environment, how many files etc.

“The data is all in the database and we have plans to surface this in response to the increased desire of our customers and prospects who need to have better insight into their overall IT data-related responsibilities,” said Whittington. “With the availability of DXOP V7 it will eventually allow us to further explore that magical marriage between DXOP’s gateway and the NonStop, meaning there may be ways to leverage the NonStop data into all we have been saying about DXOP.”

However, as we look deeper into 2020 we also see a changing landscape for IT. Moving from reliance on Capital Expenditures and becoming more appreciative of the value proposition that comes with Operational Expenditures, we see interest in opting for product acquisition on the basis of a service (rather than an on-prem deployment) intensifying. “For both DXNS and DXOP ‘as a service’ is definitely a path DataExpress has begun exploring because this direction will allow DataExpress to attract the attention and ultimately business among smaller organizations.

Looking back on where we have come from, ‘On-prem’ was the path we followed merely because of the ‘mainframe mentality’ of our NonStop base and while it has been good to us, the limitations have been quality staff (both platforms) and the very real costs from Capital Expenditure rather than the savings that come with Operational Expenditure. But now, providing DX-as-a-Service is certainly another direction to take for DataExpress.” This is stimulated both by our acquisition AND the direction HPE have taken with NonStop so we are right in the sweet spot now.

As part of this pursuit, we begun discussing DXOP having a portal that will allow our customers and prospects, as a subscription user, to be able to open up a window, drag and drop their file name / delivery IP address / time and level of security, with the result that it’s then set to go. This brings DXOP out of the operational area with system admins control and puts it into use by business department heads etc. We have our eyes on an interface for smart phones, so that brings another layer to our already existing data. “Will this be introduced into the DXNS product?,” asks Whittington. Again it all comes down to us staying close to our customers and listening to the needs but whether this becomes part of our hybrid DXNS / DXOP offering or becomes an integral part of DXNS as well, it’s 2020 that will hold all the keys for DataExpress.

2019 was most definitely a year of change as we became part of a much bigger, public company. However, this is just the beginning even as we see data taking center stage for most businesses. This is not a surprising development as it has its roots dating back to the early steps taken with Big Data and analytics, but today, business can only best differentiate itself from its competitors based on transforming the data it creates into information. With DataExpress, we ensure that data created on any platform makes it to where it is turned into information providing the insight every business is demanding of IT. And with that, we wish you all exciting prosperous time in 2020!