A brief bio

Carl is a database software industry analyst with a passion for helping organizations maximize their collective intelligence and operational efficiency through the effective management of data. Carl supports vendors and products that build not just databases, but active frameworks of information organization. He has been in the data management field for 47 years, working as a systems programmer, programmer consultant, database software developer, project manager, marketing project manager, and for 27 years, an industry analyst at IDC, from which he retired in January of 2025. Because of his background, he can speak to those whose perspective is software developer, marketing manager, or database designer as one who has been there.

 Carl has covered in depth relational, document, key-value, and graph database technologies as well as data lakes, and data lakehouse construction. Carl’s specific areas of technical knowledge and experience are in database design, metadata development and management, and data sharing. Most recently, he has focused his attention on how a comprehensive metadata-driven data platform can enable and enhance a corporate generative AI solution.

His educational background in communications makes him especially qualified to deliver simple, concise, and easy to digest representations of data problems and their corresponding solutions. As a former data practitioner, he can provide advice and observations based on experience. As a former marketing product manager, he can provide a cogent view of the competitive landscape and help vendors identify potential opportunities. As a former software market analyst in the area of DBMS, he can provide interpretations and analysis of the fast-changing database software landscape.