Databricks Opens New European Headquarters to Capitalise on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Market Opportunities

General Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa appointed to rapidly build on company's leadership in bringing AI to businesses

SAN FRANCISCO and LONDON, Oct. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Databricks, provider of the leading Unified Analytics Platform and founded by the team who created Apache Spark(TM), today announced the opening of its new EMEA headquarters in London to support the company's international growth. As part of this, Databricks has appointed David Wyatt, who built MuleSoft's EMEA Business over the last four and a half years,as Vice President and General Manager of Databricks EMEA. With a strong history in leading cloud and open source businesses in the region, Wyatt will oversee the company's customer success programmes, recruitment, sales and business development efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Companies are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as technologies to support their strategies around reducing cost, improving customer experience and delivering better results back to the business. However, the lack of data science, machine learning and AI skills is holding back many organisations from investing in these areas today and it is often hard for data science and data engineering teams to collaborate closely with others in the lines of business. More than half the respondents to Gartner's 2017 AI development strategies survey indicated that the lack of necessary staff skills was the top challenge to adopting AI in their organisation.*

Databricks' Unified Analytics Platform provides a simplified approach for data science teams to collaborate with business teams to meet their needs around analytics and AI, bridging the gaps that exist around automating analysis of data and deploying this to suit the business. By reducing the issues around AI adoption and deployment, Databricks aims to make this technology suitable for all businesses.  The company's cloud-based platform is powered by Spark, the most popular open source technology for Big Data processing and analytic workloads and an invention of the six co-founders of Databricks.

Wyatt brings more than twenty years' experience in building enterprise software companies to Databricks, covering market development, consulting and pre-sales operations. His experience includes developing new market strategies and managing teams for cloud, open source and proprietary software companies including MuleSoft, PKWare, Oracle and IBM.