ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | Information Management (17)

Secrets Revealed in Columnar Database Technology

Posted by ISG Software Research on 03 March 2011

This is the second in a series of posts on the architectures of analytic databases. The first post addressed massively parallel processing (MPP) and database technology. In this post, we’ll look at columnar database technology. Given the recent announcement of HP’s plan to acquire Vertica, a columnar database vendor, there is likely to be even more interest in columnar database technology, how it...

Topics: Data Warehousing, RDBMS, IT Performance, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Information Management

Living in the Era of Hadoop and Large-Scale Data

Posted by ISG Software Research on 02 March 2011

It’s clear that now we are living in the era of big data. The stores of data on which modern businesses rely are already vast and increasing at an unprecedented pace. Organizations are capturing data at deeper levels of detail and keeping more history than they ever have before. Managing all of the data is thus emerging as one of the key challenges of the new decade.

Topics: Data Warehousing, RDBMS, IT Performance, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Information Management, Strata+Hadoop

SAP Business Intelligence 4.0

Posted by ISG Software Research on 01 March 2011

Last week SAP launched the 4.0 Release of its Business Intelligence and Enterprise Information Management products in conjunction with the New York City stop on its “SAP Run Better Tour”. My colleague Mark Smith has already covered the announcement in the context of some of today’s major technology trends. In this post, I’ll focus on the specifics of the product announcements.

Topics: Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Collaboration, Enterprise Software, Financial Performance, Information Management, Information Technology, Mobility, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

Informatica Stays with Its Strengths in Data Integration

Posted by ISG Software Research on 27 February 2011

At Informatica’s recent industry analyst summit, Chris Boorman, the company’s chief marketing officer, opened the event by describing Informatica as expanding beyond its core offering in data integration in a broader sense. He compared this growth to Amazon expanding from being an online bookseller to offering computing resources via Amazon Web Services. I see it almost the opposite way....

Topics: Sales Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Data Integration, Informatica, Information Management, Workforce Performance

SAP Retrofits Business Intelligence and Information Management to meet IT and Business Needs

Posted by Mark Smith on 25 February 2011

SAP has reached a critical milestone in launching version 4 of its business intelligence (BI) and enterprise information management (EIM) product suite from its SAP BusinessObjects portfolio. These offerings, currently in final beta testing, will be released as a collection of software products by midyear.

Topics: Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Collaboration, Enterprise Software, Financial Performance, Information Management, Information Technology, Mobility, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

The Diminishing Science of Research in Technology Analyst Firms

Posted by Mark Smith on 18 February 2011

The technology analyst industry has ended its barrage of exuberant predictions for the new year. After digesting all of these commentaries (some were a challenge, I admit), we need to stop our predicting and instead start a discussion about what all of us ought to be doing. From my perspective, that should be an annual statement of direction, what we here call the research agenda. I have decided...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Market Research, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Business Technology, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Industry Analyst

The Business Technology Revolution in 2011

Posted by Mark Smith on 17 February 2011

The new year has brought a revolution in business technologies that allows enterprises to roll out new applications, processes and services in record time. What used to take a business six months to a year to develop and deploy – and not too long ago that was considered fast! – can now be done in a week or two, making enterprise application and business intelligence deployments of the recent past...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Market Research, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Technology, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Industry Analyst

Kognitio Pablo Brings MDX to Data and Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 February 2011

Kognitio announced the addition of MultiDimensional eXpressions (MDX) capabilities for its WX2 product line. John Thompson, CEO of U.S. operations, and Sean Jackson, VP of marketing, shared some of the details with me recently. I find the marriage of MDX and large-scale data both technically challenging and potentially valuable to the market.

Topics: Data Warehousing, MDX, RDBMS, IT Performance, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Information Management, Kognitio, MPP

Informatica Focuses Integration on Lines of Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 08 February 2011

At this year’s Informatica industry analyst conference (Twitter: #INFAAnalyst) to update the research and industry analyst community on its data integration and information infrastructure products. Looking back on my analysis of the company’s 2010 analyst summit, I see Informatica has made significant progress in gaining adoption of its products and influencing the new business technology...

Topics: Sales Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Data Integration, Information Management, Workforce Performance

MicroStrategy Combines Actions with Business Intelligence and Mobility

Posted by ISG Software Research on 07 February 2011

Last week I attended MicroStrategy World 2011 in Las Vegas, the North American version of the business intelligence (BI) vendor’s annual user conference. The event was well attended, and the company claimed attendance was up 40% over last year. The purpose of the post is to recap the announcements made, highlight the areas where MicroStrategy is making investments and comment on the overall...

Topics: Data Warehousing, MicroStrategy, IT Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Information Management

Jaspersoft Releases Version 4 and Tackles Large-Scale Data

Posted by ISG Software Research on 28 January 2011

Open source business intelligence (BI) software vendor Jaspersoft recently announced general availability of its flagship product Jaspersoft 4 and earlier this week announced a new reporting project that provides data connectors to a variety of large-scale data sources.

Topics: Data Warehousing, IT Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Information Management

Secrets Revealed in Massively Parallel Processing and Database Technology

Posted by ISG Software Research on 19 January 2011

This is the first in a series of posts on the architectures of analytic databases. This is relational database technology that has been “supercharged” in some way to handle large amounts of data such as typical data warehouse workloads. The series will examine massively parallel processing (MPP), columnar databases, appliances and in-database analytics. Our purpose is to help those evaluating...

Topics: Data Warehousing, RDBMS, IT Performance, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Information Management

Social Media Ignorance in the IT Analyst Industry

Posted by Mark Smith on 17 January 2011

Social media, the newest channel of communication across the Internet, is increasingly being used to influence, but also to deliver advice and research. I wrote about this revolution last year (See: “The Social Media Revolution in Industry Analyst Community”), reporting on the transformation that is underway and the work of our firm along with Altimeter Group and dozens of other active industry...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Market Research, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Business Technology, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Industry Analyst

Is the World Ready for One Source of Customer Data?

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 January 2011

If you listen to salesforce.com (SFDC) then you’d have to believe the answer is an emphatic “Yes.”

Topics: Salesforce.com, Customer Experience, Customer Information Management, Operational Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Information Management, Call Center, CRM

Clouds are Raining Corporate Data

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 January 2011

Cloud computing is having an increasingly large influence over the IT landscape. It’s likely that, whether you realize it or not, corporate data exists has and or is migrating outside the walls of your organization. Recent research by Ventana Research shows that in areas such as customer services, sales, workforce or human capital management, software as a service (SaaS) or cloud-based...

Topics: Sales Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Data Integration, Information Management, Workforce Performance

The Headquarters Effect and Salesforce.com

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 December 2010

Wall Street has many leading indicators to work with, some serious – such as housing starts and the purchasing managers’ index – and some done a bit tongue-in-cheek. One of the latter is the Super Bowl Indicator, which says that if a team from the original National Football League wins the game, the market will be up for the year, but if an old American Football League team wins it, the market...

Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Enterprise Software, Financial Performance, Information Management

Are Your Electronic Secrets Safe?

Posted by ISG Software Research on 10 December 2010

Near the top of one of the best columns I’ve read on l’affaire Wikileaks is this assertion: “Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms.”

Topics: Data Integration, Information Management, Uncategorized

HP Gives Up on Business Intelligence and Analytics Markets

Posted by Mark Smith on 05 December 2010

No one has seemed to notice that in the last several months, Hewlett-Packard has quietly made changes to its participation in the enterprise software market; this will significantly change HP’s value for CIOs and IT organizations in regards to business intelligence (BI) technologies.

Topics: Data Warehousing, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Enterprise Software, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), HP, Information Applications, Information Management, HP Neoview

Marching to Different Drummers

Posted by ISG Software Research on 02 December 2010

A colleague recently asked of an online professional group of which we’re members, “Is your personal computer faster than the one the boss gave you?” While answers are still trickling in, it looks pretty clear that the answer is, “Yes, of course.”

Now, we do tend a bit toward the geeky, so there’s a bit of built-in bias. But it also stands to reason that business- and corporate-issued technology...

Topics: Data Integration, Information Management, IT Analytics

The Cutting Edge

Posted by ISG Software Research on 02 December 2010

Someone slashed the top on my convertible a few days ago in a futile effort to find something of value. He or she got nothing; the perpetrator also managed to cost me at least the $500 deductible and, far worse, throw me into the maw of the monster that is the auto insurance bureaucracy.

What will come out the other end still remains to be seen; I’ll keep you posted. But what this unexpected...

Topics: Data Integration, Information Management