Have you noticed lately how much Oracle loves boasting about its extensive array of industry-specific software applications? It wants to be all things to all businesses.

All that attention helps build credibility for the growing number of smaller enterprise startups that are thinking smaller to go big, at least when it comes to their potential customer set. Sure, that focus is somewhat a matter of survival if you have limited sales resources. But is also reflects the far deeper influence of line-of-business executives—and not strictly the information technology team—in buying decisions.

Data management startup Peaxy, for example, touts its expertise in helping oil-and-gas exploration companies make sense out of engineering drawings and schematics, prospecting simulations, and telemetry data generated by equipment in the field. Eventually, the San Jose, Calif., company will also focus on additional industrial research and development activities.

“We need to start treating information of this nature as an asset,” says Peaxy CEO Manuel Terranova. “Companies won’t do this unless they’re being led by the business side, and these teams have a completely different set of requirements than what the storage industry has traditionally catered to.”

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