Key Takeaways From SplunkLive! 2017

Baird presented some key takeaways from Splunk Inc SPLK's SplunkLive, the company's annual single-day event held in multiple locations in different timeframes.

The event's mission is to make machine data accessible, usable and valuable to everyone, including professionals working in security IT operations, application development, business analytics, the IoT. It provides a platform for learning about the latest enhancements to the Splunk platform and product portfolio.

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Commenting on SplunkLive, Baird said the event had 1,500 registered users, with most customers excited about Splunk's platform and increasing data volumes.

Analysts Rob Oliver and Matt Lemenager are of the view Splunk benefits as enterprises monitor large pools of machine data and web logs. The analyst noted that security and IT Service Intelligence were also popular use cases from customer conversations.

Elaborating on the prospects, Baird noted that data sources, such as license plates, toll booths, sensors in street lights, used by police departments for capturing data in order to respond more rapidly to crimes are being coordinated and aggregated in software tools of companies such as Splunk.

Pricing Friction Being Mitigated

The firm noted one customer indicated of increasing the annual spend on Splunk to $10 million from $1 million two years ago, if growth continues and a new pricing arrangement isn't worked out.

"Splunk's push toward ratable annual license lowers upfront costs, and the company continues to evolve its EAA strategy which helps enterprises expand," the firm noted.

Comfortable With Competitive Positioning

The firm also said it saw no evidence of Elastic gaining market share, with the event increasing its comfort with Splunk's competitive positioning. A partner who sells services for both Splunk and Elastic said the latter had implementation issues such as heavy manual lifting, limited and expensive Elastic talent, the firm noted.

As such, Baird maintained its Outperform rating and $71 price target for shares of Splunk.