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THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE Information Management Blog iManage & iPhone: Something New, Something Old
Search-cum-enteprise content management (ECM) vendor Autonomy has announced an integration for its recently acquired WorkSite product with the iPhone. The WorkSite product is particularly well known and widely used within the Legal community. Smart mobile devices are increasingly usurping the role of laptops as the mobile computing device of choice, so secure access to documents in your ECM system via the iPhone makes a great deal of sense, particularly if you are an on-the-move attorney. One small point of annoyance with this particular announcement is that it claims the iPhone integration to be the first of its kind. It's not, and in the spirit of debunking myths let me just remind the PR folk at Autonomy of the following: Continue reading "iManage & iPhone: Something New, Something Old" Comments Google Announces Fusion Tables
Google has announced an experimental cloud-based data management system called Fusion Tables. A press article and Slashdot thread ensued, based on some bizarre-sounding analyst quotes that I will not attempt to parse. Continue reading "Google Announces Fusion Tables " CommentsThey Better Get This MDM Program Right
The US Government is about to undertake a massive nationwide Master Data Management program. Like all big MDM programs, concerns over data quality, data governance and exception handling loom large, but there's a difference this time: the Secure Flight program announced by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will be directly affecting you, me... and our great grandchildren. The T.S.A Secure Flight program has been developed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a key 9/11 Commission recommendation for improving the effectiveness of watch lists at our airports, in order to enhance the security of domestic and international commercial air travel. As reported in The New York Times and on the TSA Web site, the Secure Flight program will improve upon current practices in matching passenger identities to watch lists in many ways. At first glance, this appears to be a well thought-out program that conforms to several basic tenets of Master Data Management (in bold below), in this case for the "Customer" entity. Continue reading "They Better Get This MDM Program Right" CommentsThe Resurgence of Data Modeling: Part 2
The dichotomy in the evolution of data modeling tools (described in my previous blog) is of more than historical interest; it goes to the heart of how IT shops manage information modeling and software design. It's also a key differentiator in corporate IT philosophy and approach, with potential impact on capabilities and effectiveness. Analyst Jeffrey Hammond, co-author of a recent Forrester Research report on the data modeling market, finds that organizations aligned more traditionally -- with clearly delineated database administrator and data modeling/architect roles -- tend to favor classic data modeling tools like CA ERwin. Organizations with an emphasis on integrated enterprise architecture are more likely to favor tools like Sybase PowerDesigner, with its integrated modeling platform that goes beyond data. For organizations looking to empower developers, Hammond recommends tools like Embarcadero ER/Studio and Microsoft Visual Studio. Continue reading "The Resurgence of Data Modeling: Part 2" CommentsGreenplum's Announcement and the Future of Data Marts
Greenplum is announcing today a long-term vision, under the name Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC). Key observations around the concept -- mixing mine and Greenplum's together -- include:
In essence, Greenplum is pitching this story: Continue reading "Greenplum's Announcement and the Future of Data Marts" CommentsThe Resurgence of Data Modeling: Part I
CA, Embarcadero and Sybase have all recently released significant upgrades of their data modeling tools. The good news is that all three products surpass previous limitations and step up to the challenges of enterprise architecture and information governance. For IT shops, the question is: which tool works best for you? Data modeling is a niche discipline and a small software market with consistent if unspectacular growth -- Forrester Research puts the current market (including sales and support) at about $165 million, growing to about $290 million over the next four years. But what this market lacks in terms of size it more than makes up in terms of business impact; data modeling is at the heart of every custom application development, data integration and data warehousing effort. Continue reading "The Resurgence of Data Modeling: Part I" CommentsWhy Open Source Amazon APIs Will Matter
Dave Rosenberg had an interesting post around a rumor that Amazon is going to open source its API: "Amazon.com's legal team is 'investigating' open-sourcing their various Web services API's including those for EC2, and S3, Amazon's main cloud computing interfaces, according to Enomaly founder Reuven Cohen." Amazon's APIs are widely leveraged by thousands of Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers. While Rosenberg considers them the "best" method of interaction for various cloud services, at this point I only agree that they are the most used. So, what does Amazon stand to gain by this? As Rosenberg argues, by releasing the APIs as open source (creative commons, or no-sue covenant), Amazon could find that other cloud computing vendors adopt their way of doing APIs. There is no clear revenue stream from that approach, but the use of the IP will be clearly linked back to Amazon. It could become one of those little heard of "brilliant moves." Continue reading "Why Open Source Amazon APIs Will Matter" CommentsMore on MySQL Forks and Storage Engines
The issue of MySQL forks and their possible effect on closed-source storage engine vendors continues to get attention. The underlying question is: Suppose Oracle wants to make life difficult for third-party storage engine vendors via its incipient control of MySQL? Can the storage engine vendors insulate themselves from this risk by working with a MySQL fork? As laid out most clearly in a comment thread to a previous post*, Mike Hogan (CEO of ScaleDB) believes closed-source storage engine vendors can use a MySQL fork without running afoul of the GPL. In a nutshell, what he proposes is an inbetween layer of software, itself open-sourced, that on one side interfaces with MySQL, and on the other side talks cleanly enough to storage engines that it doesn't infect them with the GPL. Continue reading "More on MySQL Forks and Storage Engines" CommentsEvaluating SharePoint for Larger Enterprises
I recently offered a session at the J. Boye Philadelphia 09 conference. Speaking in the SharePoint track, I was able to interact with a number of the attendees, getting great insight into SharePoint implementations across very different businesses. Folks from companies like Wyeth, WestJet, and Ikea were either implementing SharePoint or in the early stages of planning for an implementation. Here's what I heard, directly or indirectly, from the attendees: Continue reading "Evaluating SharePoint for Larger Enterprises" CommentsThe Real Story on IBM's System S Release
IBM hastily announced System S Streams this week, a product that was supposed to be called InfoSphere Streams and introduced only in 2010. Apparently, the rush is because senior management wanted to talk about it later this week, and perhaps also because it was implicitly baked into some of IBM's advertising already. Scrambling ensued. Even so, Jeff Jones and team got to me fast, and briefed me -- fairly non-technically, unfortunately, but otherwise how I like it, namely on a harmless embargo and without any NDAs. Microsoft also introduced CEP this week. Perhaps it is more than coincidence that IBM rushed out its own announcement of an immature CEP technology immediately after Microsoft revealed its plans. Taken together, these announcements support my theory that the small independent CEP/stream processing vendors are more or less ceding broad parts of the potential stream processing market. Continue reading "The Real Story on IBM's System S Release" CommentsSAP BusinessObjects Explorer Announced
Jon Schwarz, SAP Executive Board Member, gave the global press conference at Sapphire 2009 this morning, with a focus on SAP BusinessObjects Explorer (formerly known as Polestar) and how it helps their customers to become clear enterprises: seeing, thinking and acting clearly. As Prashanth Rai twittered, it's more like a mini keynote than a press conference, or at least this part of it. SAP is seeing a fundamental change in customer expectations, both from the buyers and the users. Buyers need to do more with less, which means reducing total cost of ownership, making it easy to deploy solutions, and getting to ROI faster. Users now want the same level of usability and sophistication of digital media as they see in consumer applications (surprise!), as well as wanting to integrate social and community aspects. Continue reading "SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Announced" CommentsPMP Certification for Info Pros: Part Deux
First, here's a quick Project Management Professional (PMP) certification and Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) primer.
Here, at last, is my follow-up post about PMP training and certification. Continue reading "PMP Certification for Info Pros: Part Deux" CommentsOpen Text Buys Vignette: Investment or Impulse?
The business world is full of tumult these days, and times like these are known to give rise to strange bedpartners. But few would have expected the kind of union announced by Open Text yesterday. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company says it will acquire Vignette Corporation outright, later this year, in a deal worth approximately $310 million. According to the announcement by Open Text, Vignette shareholders will receive US $8.00 in cash, plus 0.1447 of an Open Text common share for every share of Vignette common stock, which equates to something like US $12.70 per share -- a premium of 74% above the 30 trading day average closing price of Vignette shares and barely a dollar more than book value. Why would Open Text, a $725 million vendor (with a diverse product catalog, but best known for its wide collection of ECM products) want to risk its respectable 9-percent operating margin by acquiring a competitor with negative profitability and a rapidly dwindling stream of license revenues? Continue reading "Open Text Buys Vignette: Investment or Impulse?" CommentsPMP Certification for Info Pros: Analyze This!
I recently took some time off from my moonlighting activities (e.g., writing for IE) to get my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute. I then sat down to analyze myself. Why did I do the PMP certification? How can it be helpful for me (and others like me)? If it's something you, too, are pondering, read on for my experiences and thoughts... What drove me to getting the certification is a three-part answer: partly curiosity, partly certification value, and partly "Why not me?" Continue reading "PMP Certification for Info Pros: Analyze This!" CommentsText Analytics Survey and Summit
Serious IT-market research should look at the demand side, at customer and prospect perspectives. I try to maintain balance myself in studying the text-analytics market, software and services designed to help enterprises find business value in "unstructured" text. You can help. Please participate in a survey I'm running and consider attending the up-coming Text Analytics Summit. My text-analytics survey runs through May 10. I'd like to know how your organization is dealing with unstructured sources and the role text mining/analytics plays or might play. I'll write up survey findings in a free report, available in early June. The survey will take you 5-10 minutes. Please help. Continue reading "Text Analytics Survey and Summit" CommentseBay's Enormous Data Warehouses Detailed
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to visit eBay, meet briefly with Oliver Ratzesberger and his team, and then catch up later with Oliver for dinner. I've already alluded to those discussions in a couple of posts, specifically on MapReduce (which eBay doesn't like) and the astonishingly great difference between high- and low-end disk drives (to which eBay clued me in). Now I'm finally getting around to writing about the core of what we discussed, which is two of the very largest data warehouses in the world. Continue reading "eBay's Enormous Data Warehouses Detailed" CommentsTeradata, SAP Forge Enemy-of-an-Enemy Alliance
Data warehousing vendor Teradata today announced a new partnership with enterprise applications and business intelligence vendor SAP. On the surface, the deal is about helping joint customers by integrating SAP NetWeaver BW (Business Warehouse) and SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence software with Teradata's Active Data Warehouse solutions. Below the surface, the pairing brings closer together two vendors that both compete head on with Oracle and (with some coopetition) IBM. Continue reading "Teradata, SAP Forge Enemy-of-an-Enemy Alliance" CommentsSharePoint 2010: Still Confused?
Microsoft has recently announced that the new SharePoint version will be called "Microsoft SharePoint 2010." The announcement had lots of other goodies in it, but I was particularly interested in the name change. Microsoft will often change product names from version to version; clearly to create distinction in the market, but occasionally as the result of moving products from one Microsoft team to another (as happened with SharePoint). Continue reading "SharePoint 2010: Still Confused?" CommentsIt's Time to Strengthen MySQL Forkers
As my first three posts on the Oracle/Sun merger suggested, I think Oracle will do a better job with MySQL product development than Sun has. But of course that's a low hurdle. And so it leaves open the questions: What should and/or will be the most widely adopted code lines of MySQL (or other open source DBMS), especially for the types of users and vendors who are engaged with MySQL (as opposed to principal alternative PostgreSQL) today? Continue reading "It's Time to Strengthen MySQL Forkers" CommentsFirst Thoughts on Oracle Acquiring Sun
Continue reading "First Thoughts on Oracle Acquiring Sun " CommentsIBM Weighs In: Information Wants To Be Expensive
I was quite disappointed to discover that IBM has cut off free access to historical IBM Journal articles. Decades of valuable, industry focused computing literature is now behind a "paywall." Gone is open availability of seminal material that establishes the foundations of business intelligence, data warehousing, text analytics, and more. For what? IBM earned $12.3 billion on sales of $103.6 billion in 2008. If IBM makes $1 million yearly selling journal access, that would represent less than one-hundredth of one percent of annual profit. Let's look at what we in the data business have lost. Continue reading "IBM Weighs In: Information Wants To Be Expensive" CommentsIBM Takes On Analytics and Optimization
I'm just back from IBM's Research center in Hawthorne, NY, where company officials today announced a new "IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Services" practice. The name and formalized organization are new, but executives took pains to explain that today's event was more of an unveiling of an initiative that has been in the works –- across IBM Global Business Services (GBS), the IBM Software Group and IBM Research -- for at least a few years. What's more, it's "hitting the ground running" with more than 4,000 consultants dedicated to the practice across the globe. I didn't detect any rumblings about this "a few years" back, but I have consistently heard IBM underscoring the word "analytics" since the coronation of the Cognos acquisition back in February of 2008. It was there that Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group, declared, "we've not been seen as a company that was doing business intelligence [before acquiring Cognos]... but IBM has been a leader in delivering unique, sophisticated analytic capabilities." Continue reading "IBM Takes On Analytics and Optimization" Comments'Open Cloud Manifesto?' Just Stop!
I'm not sure if you've been paying attention to the cloud computing news over the last few weeks, but the most recent dust-up and silliness came from IBM and a few others, and it's centered around this "Open Cloud Manifesto." The "Open Cloud Manifesto" proposes rules for cloud computing, including the use of open standards. I found it to be more about "motherhood, apple pie, and open standards," with no concrete anything in the document that would lead to anything of value. In essence it was a mission statement, or, at best, an opinion piece. We have plenty of those already. Continue reading "'Open Cloud Manifesto?' Just Stop! " CommentsYes to Open Source, No to SaaS: Which IT Alternatives Will You Adopt?
Open source software is the most accepted among five IT alternatives -- already in use by 42% of those surveyed -- while cloud computing is at the bleeding-edge -- in use by 14% of respondents. What's a bit surprising, however, is that software as a service (SaaS) is on more "not likely to consider" lists (49%) than is the cloud (47%). These are just a few of the findings of our "Attitudes and Priorities" survey, which is based on interviews with more than 300 readers with responsibility for enterprise IT purchases. Joining open-source software, SaaS and the Cloud on our list of five IT alternatives are social networking tools (blogs, microblogs, wikis, RSS, etc.) and rich Internet applications (mashups, Ajax, Flash/Flex, Silverlight, etc.). As you can see (click on the thumbnail image below), we asked 305 respondents to tell us which ones they are using, which ones they're considering and which ones are on the "don't go there" list. (In case you were wondering, 54% of the respondents were from companies with 1,000 or more employees, and 30% were from firms with 10,000 or more employee. Job titles broke out as follows: 60% IT, 17% business, 8% consultant, 15% "other" or unspecified.) Continue reading "Yes to Open Source, No to SaaS: Which IT Alternatives Will You Adopt?" CommentsThink Enhance, Not Replace, When Considering SaaS
One could view SaaS as a legacy technology when considering the number of years it's been out there and how it has become part of the modern enterprise. However, when looking at SaaS, or, in most instances, considering more SaaS, it's a good idea to put things into clear perspective. For those tasked with maintaining existing IT infrastructure, including major systems and information stores, the subject of SaaS can be a bit scary. Typically they talk about "replacement," and how all things bad will be solved by all things SaaS. Having gone through one IT revolution or another, you know better. Continue reading "Think Enhance, Not Replace, When Considering SaaS" CommentsSAS Global Forum: Chillin' with the Numerati
From my hotel room at the Gaylord National, I could just make out the tip of the Washington Monument. That was about as close as I got to the center of government power, where momentous decisions are being made these days about nearly everything. The Gaylord is in National Harbor, a self-contained new development down on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and therefore at some distance from the heart of D.C. My purpose was to attend the SAS Global Forum, formerly called SUGI, which annually attracts several thousand BI, data mining and statistical analysis experts –- people we may now call "the Numerati" thanks to Stephen Baker's book by that name (he spoke at the conference). Jim Davis, SAS senior vice and chief marketing officer called it "dumb luck" that the Forum happened to be scheduled for inside the Beltway this year, but it sure seemed propitious. There are a lot of big numbers being crunched in and around Washington, D.C., and no doubt some of those in charge could use the "stimulus" that analytics might provide. Continue reading "SAS Global Forum: Chillin' with the Numerati" CommentsBI from the SAP Customer Viewpoint
I'm just back from the SAP Netweaver BI & Portals conference in Florida last week, digesting what's new, what's old, what's coming. The SAP Insider conference is different from many of the BI conferences in that a media company, rather than the vendor, runs the event. I had last attended an SAP Insider conference shortly after the Business Objects acquisition was announced. Then and now, I noticed a stark contrast between the former Business Objects' conferences and these SAP Insider ones. I would have liked more enthusiasm and certainly less emphasis on legacy products. Continue reading "BI from the SAP Customer Viewpoint" Comments'Fewer Measures, Better Results' and Other Advice for the Times
If your enterprise is focusing on more than, say, a dozen key performance measures, you are probably not seeing the forest for the trees. This is just one bit of advice delivered in one of nearly a score of articles we've published on the theme of adjusting your plans and approaches to combat the downturn. Next week we'll roll the best of that advice into a one-hour Webinar entitled "Resetting Information and BI Priorities for a Challenging Economy." The case for KPI/Dashboard restraint is well illustrated by Shari Rogalski, Executive Director, Accenture Information Management Services. Rogalski shares a story about a large retailer that was reporting literally hundreds of "key metrics" to run the business. When the company decided to focus strictly on customer satisfaction and profitability, they ended up with just 15 key metrics. Continue reading "'Fewer Measures, Better Results' and Other Advice for the Times" CommentsSAS Enters Its Own Cloud
The Register has a fairly detailed article about SAS expanding its cloud/SaaS offerings. I disagree with one part, namely: SAS may not have a choice but to build its own cloud. Given the sensitive nature of the data its customers analyze, moving that data out to a public cloud such as the Amazon EC2 and S3 combo is just not going to happen. And even if rugged security could make customers comfortable with that idea, moving large data sets into clouds (as Sun Microsystems discovered with the Sun Grid) is problematic. Even if you can parallelize the uploads of large data sets, it takes time. But if you run the applications locally in the SAS cloud, then doing further analysis on that data is no big deal. It's all on the same SAN anyway, locked down locally just as you would do in your own data center. I fail to see why SAS's campus would be better than leading hosting companies' data centers for either data privacy/security or data upload speed. Rather, I think major reasons for SAS building its own data center for cloud computing probably focus on: Continue reading "SAS Enters Its Own Cloud " CommentsIn Honor of Ada Lovelace
I pledged to write a blog post for today, Ada Lovelace Day, in honor of a woman in technology who I admire. Although there have been some great women in technology throughout history -- Grace Hopper comes to mind, and is the subject of many blog posts today -- I wanted to write about someone who I know personally, and who I feel has contributed to my personal or professional development. I didn't have any women mentors in the early part of my technology career. I went to a high school in suburban Toronto during the mid-70's where I had to fight to be admitted to the technical courses, and my mentors there were two male teachers who helped get me gain entry into the courses, then taught me the right (and wrong) way to wire circuits and design mechanical gearboxes. I moved on to engineering at University of Waterloo, where I recall one female professor and one woman teaching assistant during the entire time, neither of whom had a lasting impact. I did my work terms at mines, pulp mills and oil companies in northern Ontario and Alberta: again, not many women around. I came to believe that I didn't need to have other technical women in my life, since I was doing just fine with male mentors (a convenient belief, consider that was my only choice). Continue reading "In Honor of Ada Lovelace" CommentsKey Differences Between Data Integration and App Integration
There's been a blurring of the lines between data integration in the BI environment and in the operational environment. It used to be that you bought ETL tools for the DW, and mostly hand-coded data integration for OLTP projects. The problems come when vendors obscure the differences between data and application integration to broaden the appeal of their tools. You'll find EAI and messaging vendors tout their tools for DI, and ETL vendors talk about operational DI. When evaluating tools, it's important that you realize that data integration and application integration are not the same thing. Continue reading "Key Differences Between Data Integration and App Integration" CommentsAmazon Offers 'Reserved Instances'
Amazon has introduced "reserved instances," a new Amazon EC2 pricing option that lets businesses claim a part of the Amazon cloud as their own. "Amazon Web Services is introducing Reserved Instances, an additional pricing option for Amazon EC2 that extends the current on-demand, pay-as-you-go pricing by giving customers an option to make a low, one-time payment to reserve capacity and further reduce hourly usage charges. As with On-Demand Instances, customers will still pay only for the compute capacity that they actually consume, and if they do not use an instance, they will not pay usage charges." Continue reading "Amazon Offers 'Reserved Instances'" CommentsIf IBM Buys Sun...
The reports that IBM will buy Sun Microsystems are still just rumors with no confirmation. Might not happen. Still interesting to think about. I'll leave it to other analysts to discuss potential overlap in the areas of hardware, operating systems, and databases. Instead I'll focus on the platforms of greatest interest to content technology people. Continue reading "If IBM Buys Sun..." CommentsDatabase Implications if IBM Acquires Sun
Reported or rumored merger discussions between IBM and Sun are generating huge amounts of discussion (some links below). Here are some quick thoughts around the subject of how the IBM/Sun deal — if it happens — might affect the database management system industry.
Continue reading "Database Implications if IBM Acquires Sun " CommentsIBM Would Do Everybody a Favor by Buying Sun
Sun's been getting battered in the high seas of technology for a while now. Who else but IBM could find value in this flotsam and jetsam? There's an easy way to find out if a company has lost its way: try to define the company in one, reasonably compact sentence. For example, how would you describe Sun and CA, without tying the sentence up in multiple, complex subclauses? Continue reading "IBM Would Do Everybody a Favor by Buying Sun" CommentsComplex Event Processing Vendors Flounder
Independent CEP (Complex/Event Processing) vendors continue to flounder, at least outside the financial services and national intelligence markets.
Continue reading "Complex Event Processing Vendors Flounder" CommentsGartner Tips on Cutting Software Costs
Gartner's had a good webinar series lately, including one last month with Alexa Bona on software licensing and pricing (link to "roll your own webinar" download of slides in PDF and audio in mp3 separately), as part of its series on IT and the economy. As enterprises look to tighten their belts, software licenses are one place to do that, both on-premise and software-as-a-service, but you need to have flexible terms and conditions in your software contract in order to be able to negotiate a reduction in fees, particularly if there are high switching costs to move to another platform. For on-premise enterprise software, keep in mind that you don't own the software, you just have a license to use it. There's no secondary market for enterprise software: you can't sell off your Oracle or SAP licenses if you don't need them anymore. Even worse, in many cases, maintenance is from a single source: the original vendor. It's not that easy to walk away from enterprise software, however, even if you do find a suitable replacement, you've probably spent three to seven times the cost of the licenses on non-reusable external services (customization, training, ongoing services, maintenance), plus the time spent by internal resources and the commitment to build mindshare within the company to support the product. In many cases, changing vendors is not an option and, unfortunately, the vendors know that. Continue reading "Gartner Tips on Cutting Software Costs" CommentsElectronic Medical Records: No Slam Dunk
Here in the US, the topic of electronic medical records has popped back to the top of the agenda, due to an impending mass injection of government money. Long talked about, long promised and long mandated (remember HIPAA?) -- electronic medical records in the US are for all intents and purposes still a pipedream. Yet as a late adopter (to put it politely) the US can potentially benefit in part from experiences in UK and Europe in general. The UK has long been pushing the benefits of and investing heavily in electronic medical records -- yet the slam dunk that the new administration seems to expect in terms of benefits has yet to be realized elsewhere. To explore why takes us into a range of big and complex enterprise content management (ECM) topics, but we can focus in on two key areas that will, without doubt, tax the new administration it moves forward with this initiative: Continue reading "Electronic Medical Records: No Slam Dunk" CommentsDatabase in the Cloud: Microsoft Steps Up
Microsoft recently announced plans to enable direct access to SQL Server databases in the cloud using Tabular Data Stream (TDS), the native SQL Server network protocol. This is exciting news for Microsoft developers, and just the kind of thing that Microsoft competitors wouldn't want to happen too soon... The Microsoft announcement makes it clear that Microsoft wants to move away from the current ACE data model and toward a TDS-based model. The ACE model uses the concepts of Authority (e.g. user space), Containers (e.g. tables) and Entities (e.g. rows) to allow access to SQL Server databases in the cloud. Interestingly, there's nothing wrong with the ACE model -- in one form or the other, it is the dominant data access model for databases in the cloud. (For more information, check out this article I wrote nearly a year ago on Microsoft's foray into database clouds). Continue reading "Database in the Cloud: Microsoft Steps Up" CommentsSelf-Service BI: Let Users Get on the (Soccer) Ball
You know that I am a big football fan, Packers in particular, because of my son, but everything I know about soccer (a.k.a. European football), I have learned from my English husband. Continue reading "Self-Service BI: Let Users Get on the (Soccer) Ball" CommentsDiversity Rules At Gartner's 'Megavendor' Comparison
With a show of hands at the "Comparing the Megavendors" presentation yesterday at the Gartner BI Summit, attendees made it clear that giants IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have their collective tentacles into nearly every enterprise. Attendees also made it clear that those tentacles are often intertwined and that they are in no rush to consolidate on just one vendor. Continue reading "Diversity Rules At Gartner's 'Megavendor' Comparison" CommentsObama Appointee Taps Cloud Computing
In this Wall Street Journal blog post it's clear that new White House appointee Vivek Kundra is part of a "new generation of CIOs" that consider cloud computing as a viable architectural option. "I'm a big believer in disruptive technology," he said. To him, following the traditional approach of only investing in tried-and-true systems is a sure way to become outdated. "If I went to the coffee shop, I would have more computing power than the police department," he said. "Consumers had better technology than the government did." As state, local, and the Federal government look to improve the way they do information systems going forward, clearly the cloud option will be on top of their list. While that's clearly the case now, until recently most government organizations considered cloud computing "politically incorrect," mostly around myths such as "you can't secure it," or "it's proprietary," or "it will cost jobs." None of that is really true when you look at the realities. Continue reading "Obama Appointee Taps Cloud Computing" CommentsResetting Priorities For New Economic Realities
The stock market reaches a 12-year low... GM threatened with bankruptcy... this week's news presents fresh evidence of the fragile state of the US and global economies. But it has been abundantly clear since late last year that companies need to hit the reset button when it comes to setting enterprise information management and applications priorities. In the face of new economic realities, what would you still cite as top priority? In an Intelligent Enterprise/InformationWeek Analytics survey conducted in January, we surveyed more than 300 information technology and business professionals about their attitudes and imperatives in five key areas of enterprise technology: information management, business intelligence, enterprise applications, performance management, and process management. In this post-economic-meltdown survey, readers shared their opinions on the squeakiest wheels requiring continued investment over the coming 12 to 24 months. Continue reading "Resetting Priorities For New Economic Realities" CommentsCloud Computing Shifts the Risk
A core value of cloud computing is the ability to shift the risk from your enterprise to the cloud computing provider. Since it's up to the cloud provider to handle the computing processing load and you'll pay by use, it's possible to reduce the risk that you'll run out of capacity to support your customers and core business processes. The burden of scaling shifts to the cloud provider, which is in business to accept such risks. So, while you reduce your risk as computing needs go up, you also reduce the risk that you've purchased excess capacity that you don't need. In short, you've outsourced your data center to those who will manage it, keep it healthy, and only charge you for what you use over time. Thus, an organization (such as yours) that is not in business to provide computing resources can sidestep that challenge and transfer the risk to cloud providers that are in the computing resources business. Continue reading "Cloud Computing Shifts the Risk" CommentsPatent Lawsuits Plague ETL Vendors
The biggest patent lawsuit ever to hit the ETL market is probably one you never heard of: JuxtaComm versus virtually every company in the market – a total of 16 defendants at the time. Teilhold Technologies, a subsidiary of JuxtaComm, filed the patent infringement claim late last year in the Texas Eastern District Court, a favorite of patent trolls because the courts there favor patent trolls. The lawsuit is based on a 1998 patent (6,195,662) fpr ETL: A system and method is described for importing data from a source computer system, manipulating and transforming of that data, and export the data to a target computer system under control of a script processor using stored metadata definitions. Continue reading "Patent Lawsuits Plague ETL Vendors" CommentsSkittles Social Networking: Strategy or Stunt?
Skittles -- a brand in the Mars candy conglomerate -- set off a small tornado in social media land yesterday by nearly completely turning over its Web site to Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook (see it here). Continue reading "Skittles Social Networking: Strategy or Stunt?" CommentsIngres and Alfresco Offer an ECM 'Appliance'
This week Alfresco, together with Ingres, announced the release of an ECM "appliance." Well, one thing we can say for sure is that Alfresco is never out of the trade press, and always seem to have something interesting to announce to the world. Overall that's a good thing as innovation can sometimes be in short supply. It's nice to see somebody bucking the trend. However, this particular announcement left me a bit befuddled. Mainly because it is not really an appliance as such, rather it's a software bundling of sorts. Continue reading "Ingres and Alfresco Offer an ECM 'Appliance'" CommentsMicrosoft, Sybase and Vertica Raise Data Warehouse Ante
This week has seen not one, not two, but three fairly significant data-warehouse-related product announcements at this week' TDWI event in Las Vegas. That's a testament to the pace of innovation in data warehousing and to the insatiable demand for better, faster, cheaper ways of crunching more numbers. The first of this week's announcements came from Microsoft with its release of its Fast Track Data Warehouse reference architectures. These preconfigured, SQL Server-ready 4-terabyte to 32-terabyte server-and-storage bundles are akin to Oracle's Optimized Warehouses and IBM's Balanced Configuration Units. But in Microsoft's case they're also billed as a stepping stone to Microsoft's Project Madison release, which will take SQL Server into the hundreds of terabytes with massively parallel processing (MPP) and scale-out architecture. Continue reading "Microsoft, Sybase and Vertica Raise Data Warehouse Ante" CommentsInfonic Reloaded, or the Liberation of Lexalytics
I have been following the recent implosion and regeneration of text-analytics, document-management, and Sharepoint services provider Infonic. The company recently went into administration in the United Kingdom due to insolvency. (I reported on the impending train wreck last month.) Infonic was reconstituted under new-old ownership of, reportedly, a couple of its executives. Many (former) shareholders are upset. I feel like a voyeur because this imbroglio affects Infonic subsidiary Lexalytics, which doesn't deserve the taint of guilt by association. I've concluded that the story bears exploring and that Lexalytics, given what I know of its products and management, should come out fine. The Company X that I wrote about last month was Lexalytics. It should have been, directly, Infonic, given that Infonic is and was the troubled partner in the merger of the two companies, which was announced last summer. The merger terms called for Infonic to own "between 70% and 75% of the issued share capital of the Vehicle (Infonic's percentage being dependent on certain conditions)." I critiqued the valuation of the deal in a July blog article. Continue reading "Infonic Reloaded, or the Liberation of Lexalytics" CommentsQuick Take on Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track
Stuart Frost of Microsoft (nee' DATAllegro) checked in, with Microsoft's TDWI-timed announcements. The news part was something called "SQL Server Fast Track," which is the Microsoft SQL Server equivalent to Oracle's "recommended configurations" or IBM's "BCUs." SQL Server Fast Track is further being portrayed as an incremental step toward Madison, Microsoft's future high-end data warehousing offering. Continue reading "Quick Take on Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track" Comments
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