Dipti Borkar is an enormous knowledge veteran who has been there and completed that. From stints at NoSQL database corporations like Couchbase and MarkLogic to knowledge platforms like Alluxio and Ahana, Borkar has accrued invaluable expertise at a number of levels of the sport. Now at Microsoft with the title of Vice President and Common Supervisor of Microsoft OneLake and Material ISVs, Borkar finds herself named one in every of BigDATAwire‘s Folks to Look ahead to 2025.
Borkar lately labored with BigDATAwire on a Q&A. Here’s what she needed to say:
BigDATAwire: First, congratulations in your choice as a 2025 BigDATAwire Individual to Watch! You will have had a tremendous profession thus far, with stops at Intuit, IBM, MarkLogic, Couchbase, Alluxio, and Ahana earlier than becoming a member of Microsoft in 2022. How did all these huge knowledge experiences put together you in your present function at Microsoft?
Dipti Borkar: I’m grateful for this recognition. There are such a lot of movers and shakers on this house, and it’s an honor to be included on this listing. Whereas I’ve had a spread of experiences previous to Microsoft from Fortune 100 corporations to quick rising startups to even founding my very own, all of them centered round Knowledge and platform corporations. Knowledge continues to be the inspiration for enterprises and much more so now with genAI. I consider depth in your house is admittedly essential to make knowledgeable choices, constructing credibility particularly with clients and driving breakthrough innovation. Whereas I’ve been very profitable with startups, with an IPO and a strategic exit, I discovered a key management trait from each expertise – adapting to alter. This has by no means been extra related as AI is reworking our world. Microsoft is main that transformation for our clients and it’s wonderful to have the ability to play an element on this once-in-a-decade alternative.
BDW: Microsoft has an enormous number of choices throughout huge knowledge, analytics, and AI. What’s the firm’s largest benefit on the subject of successful enterprise in huge knowledge, analytics, and AI?
DB: Microsoft has a spread of choices in knowledge, analytics and AI. Microsoft’s largest benefit lies in its complete and absolutely built-in imaginative and prescient for an end-to-end AI stack, spanning from cloud infrastructure to knowledge to AI-driven functions with safety and governance at each layer. Copilots are deeply embedded into each providing. On the knowledge layer, Microsoft Material not solely supplies a seamless SaaS unified knowledge platform for analytics, together with real-time analytics, but additionally operational use instances with the state of artwork SQL database provided as a workload in Material. This complete method permits our clients to spend much less time integrating a spread of providers and merchandise and extra time getting actual worth from their knowledge and enabling AI efficiencies.
BDW: Microsoft has nice partnerships and likewise nice builders. When launching a brand new Azure Cloud providing, how do you resolve when you need to construct internally versus when you need to companion with an present vendor?
DB: Nice query. This choice is one each product chief makes as they envision executing on their roadmap. Microsoft embraces our companions. A stronger ecosystem round Microsoft means higher experiences for our clients. The reply will depend on a number of key parameters that embrace time to market, if the element is a core basis or a distinct segment use case, and if there open-source tasks which have addressed an analogous downside. Microsoft Material has embraced open supply. We assist DeltaLake and Apache Iceberg desk codecs for Microsoft OneLake – the place knowledge throughout the shopper’s knowledge property is managed. However we went a step additional and opened the Microsoft Material platform – the identical platform that our analytics, knowledge manufacturing facility and Energy BI workloads are constructed on – so companions and software program corporations can deliver their capabilities natively into it, giving our clients the advantage of a thriving ecosystem.
BDW: Knowledge lakehouses are rising because of the standardization on the Apache Iceberg format. What’s Microsoft’s technique for supporting Iceberg with OneLake?
DB: With Microsoft Material, Microsoft moved from closed proprietary codecs to open supply desk codecs in order that no knowledge is locked in. However as a cloud chief, we’ve got clients throughout each desk codecs – DeltaLake and Apache Iceberg. Whereas we began off with the DeltaLake format, we now assist Apache Iceberg as effectively. We consider that is actually essential as a result of it meets our clients the place they’re and permits full interoperability throughout knowledge platforms. Microsoft OneLake, sometimes called the “OneDrive for knowledge,” supplies a single unified multi-cloud, SaaS knowledge lake for organizations. It helps a number of engines, permitting for numerous sorts of compute on a single knowledge lake layer.
BDW: What are you able to inform us about your self outdoors of the skilled sphere – distinctive hobbies, favourite locations, and so forth.? Is there something about you that your colleagues may be stunned to be taught?
DB: Exterior of labor, I attempt to maximize spending time with my household – husband and two children (11 and 9). We love touring the world collectively – we’ve got one final surprise of the world left to go to. Journey and music are two issues that actually preserve me going. Whereas there isn’t sufficient time for distinctive hobbies, I did educate myself to play the ukulele and luxuriate in strumming and singing with the youngsters. I really like all genres of music and maybe my favourite could shock my colleagues – Reggaeton 😊
You may learn the remainder of the 2025 Folks to Watch interviews right here.
