Peter Cohan writes in Forbes — MemSQL brings Facebook-style big data analysis to the masses:

Big companies are so worried about risk these days that it is a miracle any of them ever buy anything from a startup. That’s probably the reason that people used to say you can never get fired for buying from IBM. But a little San Francisco-based database startup is giving big competitors like IBM and Oracle a run for their money when it comes to selling databases to big organizations.

Why would a big company take a chance with a small startup? In the case of real-time big data analysis software provider, MemSQL, the answer is that it delivers better performance at a lower price compared to Oracle. Oracle charges customers “about $100,000 per terabyte (TB) when you break down its $3 million hardware cost” said Eric Frenkiel, MemSQL CEO, in a January 22 interview. Random Access Memory (RAM) on a commodity server goes for $4,000 per TB.

That 96% lower cost per unit of data stored is an excellent example of what I call a Quantum Value Leap (QVL). And evidently that QVL is enough to persuade otherwise reticent companies to buy MemSQL’s product. So far, MemSQL’s customers include “Comcast, Zynga, Shutterstock and Ziff Davis,” notes Frenkiel.