Power of choice: Safe Software CEO on life after Informatica

The Salesforce acquisition has left many Informatica customers with uncertainty, wondering what the future holds for their organization and data. 

To explore what this means for organizations rethinking their post-acquisition strategy, I sat down with Don Murray, CEO and co-founder of Safe Software, to talk about what’s at stake for Informatica customers and why “choice” has never mattered more. In this interview, Don discusses the fundamentals behind FME’s success: deployment flexibility, transparent pricing, and All-Data, Any-AI support.

Deploy Anywhere, on Your Terms

Question: “With Informatica phasing out PowerCenter support by March 2026, customers are being pressured to migrate to cloud-only options. How do you see this kind of forced migration impacting customer success when it comes to deployment?”

“With FME, customers are in control. Keep data wherever it makes the most sense to them. On-prem, in the cloud, at the edge, or any combination. FME goes to the data, not the other way around. Total freedom. Their choice…”

Don states that true flexibility means letting customers decide where their data lives. While many vendors claim to be “cloud-first,” Don suggests, “what they really mean is ‘cloud-only.’ We’re customer-first.”

The customer-first mindset reflects Safe Software’s complete deployment independence. This means no hidden agendas, costs, or forced migrations, just freedom to deploy on your own terms.

Pricing That Puts You in Control

Question: “Consumption-based pricing models like Informatica’s IPU system often make it difficult for customers to understand and predict costs to get full value from the credits they’ve already paid for. How does Safe Software take a different approach to pricing?”

“At Safe, we sell value, not capabilities. Our customers range from one-person shops to Fortune 500 enterprises, and they all deserve pricing that makes sense.”

Rather than charging by user or locking new features behind tiers, Safe Software builds pricing around how much value customers get, not how many people log in. “We recently released Data Virtualization and Augmented Reality capabilities,” Don adds. “We don’t charge for those. We don’t charge by user.”

The idea is simple: the more value FME delivers, the more it scales naturally with the customer’s needs. The correlation between “value” and “work” that is being done is extremely high. No wasted credits. No hidden fees. Just fair, predictable value that scales with success…

“Our goal is simple. When you ask a customer, ‘What system gives you the best value?’ they’ll say, ‘FME.’”

Freedom, Don says, starts with choice. That’s what creates opportunity and flexibility. 

All Data, Any AI. Your Choice.

Question: “Informatica positions its platform as helping prepare data for AI use cases. When you say FME supports ‘All-Data, Any-AI,’ what does that really mean in practice, and how does it give teams more flexibility to work with the data and AI models of their choice?”

“The best AI depends on the problem being solved and the data available the customer has to solve it. In today’s world, organizations need to give AI access to all the data that’s relevant to the problems they’re trying to solve.”

Don explains that both the data, and the AI itself should be dictated by the problem at hand, not by vendor constraints. “We have customers who use AI from all the major vendors, both in the cloud and on-premises to solve a variety of problems. – sometimes even more than one AI can solve a single challenge.”

FME’s real power comes from its support for all data types, including but not limited to structured, unstructured, imagery, 3D, and spatial. This allows teams to prepare for a wide range of data challenges. Don also highlights how AI uses the term “multimodal” to mean multiple data types. FME delivers this, noting that “the technology of AI is moving in leaps and bounds, and it needs data. All data.”

Flexibility isn’t just a deployment choice; it’s the foundation for AI readiness. “We want organizations to be able to use the AI they choose, wherever they choose. Any AI.”

Unlocking Flexibility in an Uncertain Future

Question: “Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for organizations that want to stay open, flexible, and future-ready?”

“Choice is paramount. The single most important factor that will decide who thrives is choice. Choice is power. Lock-in is death.”

As technology continues to evolve rapidly, Don believes the organizations that succeed will be those that protect their freedom to adapt. “It’s impossible to predict where technology is going, so to be ready, you have to be flexible. When you choose a solution you are choosing it for 5 or 10 years. You have to have a choice. Choose a solution that delivers it.”

This mindset is at the heart of Safe Software’s work. “We connect to all kinds of data – any type, any speed, any location, for any user,” Don says. He reminds us that FME is made for everyone, not just those with big budgets or technical specialists.

Looking ahead, Don is optimistic about the future. He states that the future of AI and data are inseparable, with Safe Software’s goal being the engine that delivers all-data to any-AI. 

Closing Thoughts

As Informatica customers navigate change, FME offers a path to regain control and stay flexible. The flexibility to deploy anywhere, to pay for the value received, and to connect all of their data. With FME, organizations own their roadmap. Informatica wants them to give that up and lock into theirs.

As Don puts it, “We’ve always believed your data should serve you, not the other way around.” That belief drives everything we build at Safe Software. We exist to empower customers — not control them.

Discover what FME can do for you.