TheCube hosts John Furrier, Dave Vellante and Jeff Kelly wrapped up the first day of HP’s annual Vertica Big Data Conference with an in-depth discussion about the impact of analytics on enterprise IT.

John highlights that the event offers customers a one-of-a-kind opportunity to interact with each other. Dave agrees, and notes that it underscores Meg Whitman’s efforts to integrate Vertica into Hewlett Packard’s data analytics strategy. Jeff chimes in with his own take:

“There is some overlap with some of the different technologies, but clearly Vertica has resonated with customers,” he says. “It’s all about getting insights into the hands of business people as fast as possible – and that’s what Vertica allows. It all boils down to performance, ease of use, and the ability to get data into the hands of users as fast as possible so that they can make better decisions.”

Vertica has been around for much longer than Hadoop, Jeff adds, and it has both a mature ecosystem and a broad customer base. Users are leveraging the company’s platform to incorporate data into their applications, a trend that is disrupting software development in the traditional enterprise.

John predicts that data-driven development will continue to gain traction over the next few years as corporate developers become more familiar with the different aspects and benefits of data analytics. Jeff concurs, and notes that the technology is steadily trickling down from web-scale companies such as Google and Facebook to the insurance industry and other traditional sectors. Vertica is accelerating adoption across these segments by abstracting the underlying hardware and enabling developers to focus on their code and data.

To see the full recap of Day 1, check out the video below.

Day 2 Recap: HP software keeping up with Big Data?

John, Dave and Jeff assembled in theCube to recap the second half of the event. Furrier kicks off the session by pointing out that data analysis is a central pillar of HP’s aggressive software strategy.

Dave interprets the maturity of the audience at the conference as a sign of accelerating Big Data adoption in the enterprise. The way Jeff sees it, Vertica is bringing analytics to companies in insurance, retail, financial services and other traditional industries. The software maker is also empowering its partners to integrate data-driven capabilities into solutions.

Big Data has proved to be a disruptive force across all verticals. Furrier observes that social media analysis is “folding under” this trend as companies shift their focus to operational data and security, two important segments that haven’t gotten nearly as much attention as they deserve.

Hewlett Packard has big ambitions for Hadoop and analytics, and it has its work cut out for it. Dave highlights that the firm’s $4 billion software business accounts for only a small fraction of its overall revenue, a situation that the company can amend by doubling down on Vertica and HAVEn, outcompeting rivals, and bringing the pace of its R&D up to par with that of startups.

HP’s big software push underscores the fact that it’s still a hardware vendor at its core. The company is trying to address the rapid commoditization of this market with open solutions such as Moonshot, but Jeff stresses that keeping true to an open-source approach is easier said than done. He adds the vendor will have to bolster Autonomy and Vertica and engage corporate developers in order to successfully realize its Big Data vision.

See the video below for additional highlights from theCube’s final wrap-up of the Vertica Big Data Conference.