In one of the industry’s best known volte-face, Microsoft have warmly embraced Open Source. As announced at Microsoft’s Connect() conference earlier this week, Microsoft is pleased to become a Linux Foundation Platinum Member. We also saw a quieter announcement; the Azure DataMarket is being decommissioned.
Now that Microsoft are ecstatically adopting Open Source Software, I’d love to see Microsoft adopt Open Data too. I’d love to see an Open Data platform on Azure, which is easy-to-use, aimed at business users, data scientists and even consumers in the form of data citizens.
If you look up Open Data, you’ll see that there are open data ‘puddles’ everywhere. So we have the London Data Store, SF Open Data, and the Azure DataMarket already has some Open Data, for example, the UK Met Office Weather Open Data. Why not have all of these data puddles joined up in a new, Azure-based, Open Data store?
There is no joined up thinking in the world that would constitute an Open Data Lake. I’d love Microsoft to adopt this on behalf of, and for, the data community worldwide.
I’d like to see the Azure DataMarket rebooted to be a home for an Open Data platform. Perhaps it could be called Azure Open Data, or even simply Azure Open, or something simple like that.
Microsoft can join the Open Data dots for the community, and that’s a real democratization of data for us all.