ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

IBM and The World of Watson

Posted by David Menninger on 16 December 2016

IBM recently held its inaugural World of Watson event. Formerly known as IBM Insight, and prior to that IBM Information on Demand, the annual event, attended by 17,000 people this year, showcases IBM’s data and analytics and the broader IBM efforts in cognitive computing. The theme for the event, as you might guess, was the Watson family of cognitive computing products. I, for one, was glad to... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Internet of Things, Information Optimization, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing

Tableau Prepares for Future with Data Preparation and Collaboration

Posted by David Menninger on 10 December 2016

More than 13,000 self-described “data and visualization nerds” gathered in Austin, TX, recently for Tableau Software’s annual customer conference. In his inaugural keynote, Tableau’s new CEO, Adam Selipsky, said that nearly 9,000 were first-time attendees. I was impressed with the enthusiasm of the customers who had gathered for the event, cheering as company officials reviewed product plans and... Read More

Topics: Tableau, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Visualization, DataPrep

Big Vendors Deserve Some Respect

Posted by David Menninger on 26 November 2016

Fall is a busy time for software industry analysts. It’s a season filled with vendors’ user conferences and some industry conferences. Throughout the course of attending these events I’ve come to the realization that big vendors are often considered the Rodney Dangerfield of the software industry: They get no respect. What I mean by no respect is revealed in snarky social media comments, less... Read More

Topics: Sales, Software

Investigating the Potential of Data Preparation

Posted by David Menninger on 21 November 2016

Data preparation is critical to the effectiveness of both operational and analytic business processes. Operational processes today are fed by streams of constantly generated data. Our data and analytics in the cloud benchmark research shows that more than half (55%) of organizations spend the most time in their analytic processes preparing data for analysis – a situation that reduces their... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Data Preparation

Splunk Delivers Insights from Machines

Posted by David Menninger on 09 November 2016

I recently attended .conf2016, Splunk’s seventh annual user conference. Splunk created the market for analyzing machine data (shorthand for machine-generated data), which consists of log files and event data from various types of systems and devices. Our big data analytics benchmark research shows that these are two of the most common sources of big data that organizations analyze. This market... Read More

Topics: Machine Learning, Splunk, Analytics, Machine data, Operational Intelligence

Big Data Grows Up at Strata+Hadoop World 2016

Posted by David Menninger on 02 November 2016

I recently spent time at Strata+Hadoop World 2016 in New York. I attended this event and its predecessor, Hadoop World, off and on for the past six years. This one in New York had a different feel from previous events including the most recent event in San Jose at the end of March. Perhaps because of its location in one of the financial and commercial hubs of the world, the event had much more of... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Strata+Hadoop

Oracle Goes All In On Cloud

Posted by David Menninger on 02 November 2016

I recently attended Oracle OpenWorld for the first time in several years. The message at this year’s event was clear: Oracle is all in on the cloud. I had heard the message, but I didn’t get the full impact until I arrived at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. All signage at the event contained the word “cloud,” and Oracle issued 18 press releases in conjunction with OpenWorld related to cloud... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing