David Stodder is senior director of TDWI Research for business intelligence. He focuses on providing research-based insights and best practices for organizations implementing BI, analytics, data discovery, data visualization, performance management, and related technologies and methods and has been a thought leader in the field for over two decades. Previously, he headed up his own independent firm and served as vice president and research director with Ventana Research. He was the founding chief editor of Intelligent Enterprise where he also served as editorial director for nine years. You can reach him by email (dstodder@tdwi.org), on Twitter (twitter.com/dbstodder), and on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/davidstodder).
Happy New Year to everyone in the TDWI community! I wish you an enjoyable and prosperous year. Squinting down the path ahead, it is indeed going to be a busy year at TDWI as we roll out our World Conferences, Summits, Forums, Seminars, Webinars, Best Practices Reports, Checklists, and more. The next World Conference is coming up February 12-17, in Las Vegas. This event is always one of the major gatherings of the year in business intelligence and data warehousing, and I am looking forward to being there and interacting with attendees, exhibitors, TDWI faculty, and a few croupiers here and there.
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Posted by David Stodder on January 5, 20120 comments
Where is the biggest battleground today in the business intelligence and analytics software market? On the technology front, one of the main battles is in the addressable memory space of systems that feature 64-bit computing and operating system platforms. The “in-memory” revolution is upon us, and no BI or analytics vendor wants to be left out. Large memory platforms will be critical to users working with tools for big data analytics, data discovery, data visualization, and more.
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Posted by David Stodder on September 15, 20110 comments
On airplanes, at coffee bars, at ballgames, and even while waiting out an oil change, I am, like many of you, encountering people intensely focused on their mobile smartphones and tablets. I can’t say that I’ve been nosy enough to check out whether those I’ve seen are using the devices for business intelligence, but some – at least the fellow at the oil change shop – do seem to be working with spreadsheets and charts, not just enjoying social media or entertainment. As technology and software options evolve, there’s less and less standing in the way of people using the devices for BI. The revolution is coming.
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Posted by David Stodder on September 9, 20110 comments
Delivering value sooner and being adaptable to business change are two of the most important objectives today in business intelligence (BI) and data warehouse development. They are also two of the most difficult objectives to achieve. “Agility,” the theme of the upcoming TDWI World Conference and BI Executive Summit, to be held together the week of August 7 in San Diego, is about implementing methodologies and tools to that will shorten the distance to business value and make it easier to keep adding value throughout development and maintenance cycles.
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Posted by David Stodder on July 14, 20110 comments
When you’re 100 years old, as IBM is this year, it would be easy to think that you’ve seen it all. What could possibly be new to Big Blue about “big data”? In the view of Robert LeBlanc, SVP of Middleware Software for the IBM Software Group, quite a bit.
The new problem set, defined by business opportunities opening up due to the availability of new sources of information, cannot be solved with traditional data systems alone. Kicking off the IBM Big Data Symposium for industry analysts at the Yorktown Research Center on May 11, LeBlanc itemized a number of challenges, including multi-channel customer sentiment and experience analysis, detection of life-threatening conditions at hospitals in time to intervene, Medicare fraud interdiction before payment, and weather pattern predictions to optimize wind turbine locations. (Note: The next TDWI Solution Summit, September 25-27 in San Diego, will feature case studies focused on the theme of “Deep Analytics for Big Data.”)
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Posted by David Stodder on May 17, 20110 comments
Teradata’s recent acquisition of Aster Data Systems is a huge signal that worlds of “big data” and data warehousing are coming together. The deal itself was not a surprise; Teradata made a down payment on Aster last September, when it bought 11 percent of the company. And before making that initial investment, Teradata proved that it was not averse to bringing in other people’s database engines by acquiring Kickfire, an innovator in MySQL and analytic appliances. However, unlike Kickfire, which was floundering in the market but offered interesting “SQL on a chip” technology, Aster was successful and well-funded. Teradata will now have an opportunity to expand its appeal beyond traditional, SQL-based data warehousing into the realm of particularly unstructured big data – and provide the technology to bring these worlds together.
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Posted by David Stodder on March 11, 20110 comments