Snowflake Inc. made a number of announcements during its gathering in Las Vegas this week that were aimed at reducing friction in app development and managing analytical and transactional data on a single platform.The latest moves offered a glimpse into Snowflake’s strategic direction, which will be accompanied by its own set of challenges, according to analysts in attendance.“In effect, they are trying to become a data operating system,” said Dave Menninger (pictured, left), senior vice president and research director at Ventana Research. “It’s ambitious. I think they’ll experience some success with that. They will still struggle, however, with bringing everything together on one platform