Big Data News & Articles

With Sapphire Now, SAP’s annual gathering coming to a close later today, it’s hardly surprising that there is a bit of something for everyone. There’s cloud, mobile and databases, with the ERP king announcing the release of around 70 apps that do different things with different systems.

The company that leverages data best will win the future. That’s the business credo of 2012. It’s easy to say, but not so easy to do, especially at the enterprise level.

Big data and the tools to manage it have become an almost constant topic of discussion, and NoSQL, a general category of non-relational data storage tools designed to store large volumes of loosely structured data, is frequently at the center of these conversations. However, not everyone is enamored with NoSQL. A recent report by Information Week, “Why NoSQL Equals No Security,” suggests that security is barely an afterthought in NoSQL repositories. Is this a valid assessment or just a bit more hyperbole in a market that seems to gravitate toward tabloid style sensationalism?

The problem with using data to make critical business decisions is not only that there is so much of it, but, increasingly, it’s in hard-to-reach locations -- social media, Web and cloud apps. Now, Kapow Software and Informatica Corporation are working to do something about that.

Despite CEO chaos, Yahoo is taking advantage of its interclick purchase to leverage big data for advertisers. Yahoo's Genome advertising solution should be available in July 2012.

Everyone’s talking about Big Data, even your grandmother has probably heard of it. “I don’t much about it, but I know it’s important,” my 90-year old father-in-law told me when I brought it up in a conversation.

I bet he's not the only one still trying to figure it out. Then comes the big data appliance -- bring on the head swirling effects.

Digital marketing/e-commerce software provider EPiServer is scaling its technology offering to more effectively handle Big Data with the purchase of Swedish enterprise search solution vendor 200OK AB. The 200OK AB cloud-based “Truffler” application can handle large volumes of Big Data, including user data, social and mobile web content, and product and online transaction information.

E-retailers have a habit of sending messages at least once or twice a day to their database of customer email addresses, regardless of who they are or the last time they made a purchase. Marketing managers are still attempting to unravel the mystery of what makes some people open and read their messages and others immediately trash them.

There is one obvious clue -- settling for mass blasts will do nothing for garnering positive attention.

Social customer experience solutions provider Lithium Technologies is targeting companies that feel overwhelmed by exponential volumes of social media chatter with its new release. Called Lithium Response, the application is designed to allow brands to monitor and engage in relevant social media conversations without having to employ a small army of social media agents.

In an effort to expand its Smarter Commerce customer experience initiative, IBM is purchasing Tealeaf Technology Inc., a specialty provider of customer experience analytics software. Tealeaf’s software suite is designed to analyze online and mobile consumer interactions to detect patterns and issues.

May has proved beneficial for funding -- first SocialText and now DataSift. Hot on the heels of Big Data Week, DataSift is celebrating big funding with an announcement that it has secured US$ 7.2 million in a follow-on Series A round from existing investors GRP Partners and IA Ventures.

Big Data has become quite the talking point in recent years as databases swell to previously unimaginable sizes. Google now wades into the enterprise battle offering its BigQuery solution that requires no BigIron hardware or BigBucks software.

Q-Sensei Corp., a multi-dimensional search and indexing technology company, announced the release of Q-Sensei Enterprise v2.0 featuring ontology-based data processing and a new API.

IBM is the acquisition trail again despite disappointing results for Q1 released last week. The results fell around the European economy, not over IBM commercial strategy. The result is that it looks like it is to keep buying what it needs, this week’s Vivisimo acquisition being a case in point.

Pentaho has released a new version of its analytics platform, Pentaho Business Analytics 4.5. Pentaho continues to focus on making it easier for non-technical users to find answers hidden in the piles of data modern organizations are collecting. The latest release adds new options for data visualization and exploration and further extends the solution’s integration options.