Two cloud-based data specialists have announced a merger that will create what they claim is the leading next-gen data platform provider. The $5.2bn deal sees Cloudera and Hortonworks hook up, but very much looks like a sign of things to come – as the smaller players in a market team up to try and carve out a stake before the titans extinguish such hopes. In this sector, those colossuses are the likes of Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. These companies have enough cash to buy their way into any market they like, and the massive channels to make signing up customers a pretty straightforward process.

At the Cloudera Sessions event in Munich, Germany, Paige Roberts of Syncsort sat down with Mike Olson, Chief Strategy Officer of Cloudera. In this first of a three-part interview, Mike Olson goes into what's new at Cloudera, how machine learning is evolving, and the adoption of the Cloud in organizations.

Why is machine learning finally real? As he declared: "The algorithms that early researchers and current practitioners use are ravenous for data and we finally have enough data on the planet to feed them. They also need scale-out computation and storage at low cost." In fact, the mountains of data that we now enjoy are a direct result of high-quality open source software running on commodity hardware: More applications churning out more data for more people. Despite this low-cost hardware and software, and its impact on machine learning, let's be clear: Big enterprises are the primary beneficiaries.

In addition to playing the role of Mackenzie "Mickey" Murphy on "The Mick," Kaitlin Olson also serves as an executive producer of the new FOX sitcom. Although the 41-year-old actress admitted that doing double-duty for the show is not easy, she said that she likes the fact that she's involved in all aspects of the series. "It's just a lot more work," Olson told Maxim of producing the show while portraying the lead role. "I care very, very deeply so there's some inherent stress involved there, but I love it. If this show fails, at least it fails with me making it the show I wanted to make, and I could only do that if I were producing it.

Christopher (Laird Macintosh) and Poodle (Tricia O'Kelley) made a surprising return to the Pemberton mansion in the Season 1 finale of "The Mick." But what was more unexpected for Mickey in the season ender was to find herself emotionally attached to Chris and Poodle's kids Sabrina (Sofia Black-D'Elia), Chip (Thomas Barbusca) and Ben (Jack Stanton). "I always knew that the parents would come back at some point in the season," Kaitlin Olson told Entertainment Weekly. "It ended up working out that it was the finale." Olson added that she wanted the finale to be hilarious and touching at the same time.