Innovation No Longer Driven by Big IT
January 18, 2013
Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM – these companies spend big bucks on research and development every quarter. Microsoft spends $10 billion a year. But none of these companies have made significant contributions to the enterprise in the last ten years. So who’s making the impact? Open source. ReadWrite Enterprise covers the story in, “Trickle-Down Web Innovation Breathes New Life Into Enterprise IT.”
The author gets to the crux of the issue:
“Cloud computing, Big Data, mobile… they’re all being invented elsewhere, not by the enterprise behemoths . . . these tools were open sourced, not put out for sale. That’s how innovation seems to happen in the 21st Century. In large part innovation comes with an open-source license because it’s a by-product of businesses that heavily rely on technology, but don’t actually sell technology. It’s ‘trickle-down innovation’ from the web business community.”
Web giants like Yahoo!, Google, and Facebook are making great strides in large scale applications on low cost infrastructure. The sheer volume of data dealt with is striking. But there are other smaller companies who focus their effort on precise open source enterprise search software, and they are making a big impact in their own way. LucidWorks is one such company, proving that open source can provider better service at a better price point and maintain just as high a level of reliability.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PolySpot Connects Data from Multiple Apps Across the Enterprise
January 17, 2013
Now that more companies understand that big data is the ticket to big opportunity and big insights, the job descriptions of data scientists are becoming more than fleshed out on paper. People are being hired in this position and companies are hoping that articles like “Data Scientists Will Unlock Big Data’s Promise” from The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Report are correct.
After the requisite reflective move to take a step back and look at what data means today, as opposed to their article on big data last week, the article moves in to a discussion on a holistic approach that data scientists take because of the inherent interdisciplinary nature of their work.
The article then takes a holistic look at our usage of data analysis:
Over the past few centuries, we have significantly increased our understanding of the natural world around us by learning how to collect large amounts of data and by developing disciplined ways to study, analyze, model and make sense of all that data. We have similarly applied our scientific methods in the social sciences to enhance our understanding of societies and human behavior.
Where there is a will, there is a way. This is definitely the case with both the jobs of data scientists and also big data solutions that enables the real-time connectivity of information sourced in various apps across the enterprise. We saw PolySpot conquer the latter and we will see data scientists help further the efforts of these technologies.
Megan Feil, January 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
QlikTech and Attivio Partner for Big Data Analytics
January 17, 2013
More and more collaboration continues to emerge in the Big Data community, particularly among open source-based software companies. Attivio and QlikTech recently formed one such partnership. Daily Finance covers the story in, “QlikTech and Attivio Partner to Deliver QlikView Direct Discovery for Big Data Analytics.”
The article begins:
“QlikTech, a leader in user-driven Business Intelligence (BI), and Attivio today announced a partnership to give customers the ability to combine QlikView in-memory data with Attivio’s Active Intelligence Engine (AIE®) via QlikView Direct Discovery. QlikTech and Attivio have collaborated to test and validate Direct Discovery with Attivio’s AIE to leverage AIE’s capabilities of unifying the variety of Big Data information to give business users a full understanding of not just what has happened, but also why.”
Providing meaning to Big Data is a continuing challenge. But, many excellent Big Data solutions are emerging. LucidWorks Big Data is another to consider. LucidWorks boasts industry respect and long-standing investment in the open source community. Their platform is built on Apache Lucene, and is considered a leader in cost effective enterprise open source search.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Big Data Push Back
January 17, 2013
Businesses love Big Data because it allows them to analyze years’ worth of data, discover trends, an open new revenue streams, right? No so, according to Leena Rao of Tech Crunch in her article, “Why We Need To Kill ‘Big Data.’” Rao believes the word is outdated and does not reflect what is going on now with data. The current trend deals with how people use the data, the apps, and the insights it can provide. Big Data is not only used in enterprise systems. Nearly every company these days is a Big Data company and Big Data start-ups do not describe everything the company can do.
It is important to analyze and cash in on the data, because many industries including advertising and e-commerce depend on it. We just have to change the way it is viewed:
“Another fact worth pointing out is that enterprise companies like IBM, large retailers, financial services giants and many others have been parsing through massive amounts of data for some time now, before this word was even coined. It’s just that the types of data we are now parsing through is different, and we don’t need to be using these data analytics systems through on-site data centers. So let’s figure out a different way to describe startups that are dealing with large quantities of data. Perhaps it’s about the actual functionality of apps vs. the data. It’s the New Year and a great time to brainstorm over ways we can avoid ‘the term that must not be named.’”
Big Data is an outdated buzzword, but if we get rid of it what will replace it? Possibly something even more annoying and less descriptive?
Whitney Grace, January 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Big Data Infrastructure and Apps Work Together to Enable Real Time Information Access
January 16, 2013
Venture Beat published an important piece on the realm of big data technologies recently. In “The Future of ‘Big Data’ is Apps Not Infrastructure,” the author points to the land of opportunity for vendors and businesses – and venture capitalists.
This article calls for big data applications that integrate insights and deliver them to the widest group of users that are a part of the particular business process targeted. Emphasis is placed on the need for applications to enable the greatest number of employees to access and analyze information presented.
More context around the current state of big data in the media and beyond is offered:
It’s not just the media that has been focused on Big Data infrastructure, much of the recent venture and growth equity investment activity has gravitated towards the tools and platforms needed to manage Big Data and deliver analytic insights. However the largest wave of Big Data value creation is still to come and it will focus on exploiting the infrastructure to create new applications that analytically optimize business processes.
Software vendors that can deliver infrastructure and applications will be set in the current market. We have our eyes on PolySpot since they specialize in both and have been helping organizations in delivering information near real-time since 2001.
Megan Feil, January 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Businesses Gain Insights and Opportunities Using Technologies from Polyspot
January 15, 2013
Media coverage and analysis of big data has made an impact on small business owners according to a recent article from Inc. In “Baffled By Big Data? Use ‘Small’ Data Instead,”a survey from Harris Interactive is discussed and some interesting findings are revealed.
It turns out that 76% of firms polled stand by big data: they believe it holds immense opportunities for their business. However, the article points to a few other numbers that could make the 74% appear problematic. 28% of the companies polled believe big data means massive growth of transaction data and 24% think big data refers to new technologies for managing massive data. Still another 19% say that is is the requirement to store and archive data for regulatory compliance.
The article states:
What does that boil down to? Big data holds lots of promise, sure, but for small businesses, realizing the benefits of this trend may still be pretty far out of reach. So should the average founder simply throw up their hands and click along to the next article whenever they read yet another headline about how they need to be using more data to run their business?
The article overanalyzes these findings to make a mountain out of a molehill. Small businesses are perfectly poised to extract insights from data using solutions like PolySpot that offer affordable technologies for small businesses to gain valuable insights and opportunities from data.
Megan Feil, January 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Big Data on National Security
January 15, 2013
Big Data is all the buzz these days and its impact on national security, or security in general, is really growing. Security implications are obvious when technologists start talking about extracting data from minute data. On that note, Cloudera is hosting a forum on the national security of implications of Big Data on January 30th. The conversation is focused on Apache Hadoop. Read all the details in Bob Gourley’s blog entry, “Are You Architecting Sensemaking Solutions in the National Security Space? Register for 30 Jan Federal Big Data Forum Sponsored by Cloudera.”
Gourley begins:
“Friends at Cloudera are lead sponsors and coordinators of a new Big Data Forum focused on Apache Hadoop. The first, which will be held 30 January 2013 in Columbia Maryland, will be focused on lessons learned of use to the national security community. This is primarily for practitioners and leaders fielding real working Big Data solutions on Apache Hadoop and related technologies.”
The forum would be worth a look for those in this line of work. Many open source vendors, particularly those who deal with Big Data, are trying to address the issue of national security. LucidWorks is another company making an impact on security with its Big Data work. Their partnership with ISS brings their Big Data solutions to the federal government to tackle Special Operations, Counter-Drug, and Counter-Terrorism among others.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PolySpot Covers Enterprise Big Data Needs with Real Time Insights
January 14, 2013
When trying to identify a definition for big data many people turn to Gartner’s popular 3 V’s. However, we heard word from Information Week on something that goes above and beyond a simple definition in their article “Big Data 101: New Vendor-Neutral Guide addressing a new handbook for enterprises on big data from the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA).
Despite the fact that many technologies are poised to address big data and are currently functioning with success, their are still organizations that express a greater desire for information on the basics of big data. The ODCA has answered their pleas for more information with their new “Big Data Consumer Guide.”
The article informed us:
The consumer guide summarizes how big data platforms can help a variety of industries. Banks, for instance, can correlate data from multiple, unrelated sources to potentially spot credit card fraud. In addition, the guide provides common definitions and lingo that organizations can use when working with big data providers.
This endeavor will help enterprises get a clear picture on the landscape at the time it is published, but new technological solutions in the big data arena pop up all the time. Innovative information delivery in the enterprise will continue to start and end with PolySpot, however.
Megan Feil, January 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Elasticsearch Pins Big Hopes on New Marketing VP
January 12, 2013
The complex Elasticsearch, with their recent investment infusion, seems to be tapping into proven marketing strategies. In “Elasticsearch Expands Executive Team to Drive Adoption of Big Data Search,” BusinessWire reveals that the company is welcoming tech-marketing expert Elyse Phillips, who has spent fifteen years in the field. The write-up summarizes the new vice president of marketing’s experience:
“Elyse has spent her career rapidly evolving innovative technologies and services into market game changers. Prior to Elasticsearch, Elyse was director of marketing at Appcelerator, the leading mobile development platform provider, where she launched Titanium, the number one open source mobile development platform in the world, and helped build a community of 350,000 mobile developers worldwide. Prior to Appcelerator, Phillips was the head of marketing and investor relations for First Virtual Corporation, a pioneer in Internet video, where she took them from start-up through IPO.”
Elasticsearch CEO Steven Shuurman believes that Phillips’ history of creating savvy marketing positions and strong visibility will help drive his company to big-data success. Will marketing be enough to overcome the complexity of their system?
Elasticsearch recently benefited from $10 million in Series A funding. Though their headquarters are in Amsterdam, Phillips will reportedly be working in the SanFrancisco Bay offices. The company was formed in 2012 specifically to develop and support the open-source elasticsearch solution, which several of its founders helped establish through Apache.
Cynthia Murrell, January 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Focus Within Big Data is Steered Towards Enterprise Information Delivery
January 10, 2013
The New Year brings about resolutions of all shapes and sizes. We spotted an interesting one from Tech Crunch author Leena Rao in regards to big data. Unlike many CEOs and IT professionals seeking to utilize this cutting edge technology, she wants to abolish the term ‘big data.’ In the article, “Why We Need To Kill ‘Big Data‘” she chalks up the concept to a mere buzz word.
The author states the following in the referenced article:
Why have I grown to hate the words “big data”? Because I think the term itself is outdated, and consists of an overly general set of words that don’t reflect what is actually happening now with data. It’s no longer about big data, it’s about what you can do with the data. It’s about the apps that layer on top of data stored, and insights these apps can provide.
Rao signals an important change in enterprise readiness for big data; companies are prepared to take action by deploying and utilizing big data solutions. We will see many companies use technologies focused on enterprise information delivery across the entire organization. The key is having the right knowledge in the right place and at the right time.
Megan Feil, January 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
