Category: Computing & data (Page 74 of 80)

Computing and data is a broad category. Our coverage of computing is largely limited to software, and we are mostly focused on unstructured data, semi-structured data, or mixed data that includes structured data.

Topics include computing platforms, analytics, data science, data modeling, database technologies, machine learning / AI, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, augmented reality, bots, programming languages, natural language processing applications such as machine translation, and knowledge graphs.

Why Big Data is important to Gilbane Conference attendees

September 23, 2012 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

If you think there is too much hype, and gratuitous use of the term, big data, you haven’t seen anything yet. But don’t make the mistake of confusing the hype with how fundamental and how transformational big data is and will certainly be. Just turn your hype filter to high and learn enough about it to make your own judgements about how it will affect your business and whether it is something you need to do something about now, or monitor for future planning.

As I said yesterday in a comment on a post by Sybase CTO Irfan Khan Gartner dead wrong about big data hype cycle (with a response from Gartner):

However Gartner’s Hype Cycle is interpreted I think it is safe to say that most, including many analysts, underestimate how fundamental and how far-reaching big data will be. How rapidly its use will evolve, and in which applications and industries first, is a more difficult and interesting discussion. The twin brakes of a shortage of qualified data scientist skills and the costs and complexities of IT infrastructure changes will surely slow things down and cause disillusionment. On the other hand we have all been surprised by how fast some other fundamental changes have ramped up, and BDaaS (Big Data as a Service) will certainly help accelerate things. There is also a lot more big data development and deployment activity going on than many realize – it is a competitive advantage after all.

There is also a third “brake” which is all the uncertainty around privacy issues. There is already a lot of consumer data that is not being fully used because of fear of customer backlash or new regulation and, one hopes, because of a degree of respect for consumer’s privacy.

Rob Rose expanded on some specific concerns of marketers in a recent post Big Data & Marketing – It’s A Trap!, including the lack of resources for interpreting even the current mostly website analytics data marketers already have. It’s true, and not just for smaller companies. In addition there are at least four requirements for making big data analytics accessible to marketers that are largely beyond the reach of most current organizations.

Partly to the rescue is Big Data as a Service BDaaS (one of the more fun-sounding acronyms). BDaaS is going to be a huge business. All the big technology infrastructure firms are getting involved and all the analytics vendors will all have cloud and big data services. There are also many new companies including some surprises. For example, after developing its own Hadoop-based big data analytics expertise Sears created subsidiary MetaScale to provide BDaaS to other enterprises. Ajay Agarwal from Bain Capital Ventures predicts that the confluence of big data and marketing will lead to several new multi-billion dollar companies and I think he is right.

But while big data is important for the marketers, content managers, and IT who attend our conference because of the potential for enhanced predictive analytics and content marketing. The reach and value of big data applications is far broader than marketing – executives need to understand the potential for new efficiencies, products and businesses. The well-known McKinsey report “Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and Productivity” (free) is a good place to start. If you are in the information business I focus on that in my report Big-Data: Big Deal or Just Big Buzz? (not free).

Big data presentations at Gilbane Boston

This year we have six presentations on big data, two devoted to big data and marketing and all chosen with an eye towards the needs of our audience of marketers, content strategists, and IT. You can find out more about these presentations, including their date and time on the conference program.

Keynote

Bill Simmons, CTO, DataXu
Why Marketing Needs Big Data

Main Conference Presentations

Tony Jewitt, VP Big Data Solutions at Avalon Consulting, LLC
“Big Data” 101 for Business

Bryan Bell, Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, Expert System
Semantics and the Big Data Opportunity

Brian Courtney, General Manager of Operations Data Management, GE Intelligent Platforms
Leveraging Big Data Analytics

Darren Guarnaccia, Senior VP, Product Marketing, Sitecore
Big Data: What’s the Promise and Reality for Marketers?

Stefan Andreasen, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Kapow Software
Big Data: Black Hole or Strategic Value?

Update: There is now a video of me being interviewed on big data by CMS-Connected.

IT Spending and Productivity Improvements in Global 5000 Companies

September 16, 2012 / hhenry / 0 Comments

One of the simple questions that business management has to ask when considering new spending is “will this help me make money or save money?” If the answer is not clear to either of those choices, it is hard to see that investment happening. It does not matter if this pertains to IT spending, a new facility or any other kind of major outlay. There has been a great deal of research conducted in past years showing that the investment in technology does, in fact, lead to an increase in productivity in many cases.

A convenient way to look at this is to simply calculate the revenue per employee figures for a company and compare them to your peers. We did this recently with The Global 5000 companies and took it a step further.

First we looked at companies in the Global 5000 list that have shown an increase in their revenue per employee ratios over the past two years. We selected the top 2,000 based on the largest percent increases in revenue per employee figures. Next, from this top 2000, we looked their corporate IT spending and ranked them from largest to smallest and selected the top 1,000 IT spenders out of the selection.

Therefore, the group of 1,000 we have examined are those growing revenue per employee the fastest and spend the most on IT. A reasonable assumption would be that will continue to spend and strive for continuous improvements — making some great potential targets for those that can show their offerings help save money.

Our list of the best 1,000 for this selection are in these industry groups:

Financial Services
Large Industrials
Oil & Gas
Technology companies
Basic Materials
Business Services

And the leading countries for these key targets are:

USA
Japan
China
UK
Germany
France
Canada
Switzerland
Australia
Brazil

In our next post, we will flip this analysis and look at those that are not growing revenue per employee and do not spend a lot on IT — those may be an opportunity in waiting or places to avoid spending a lot of time on.

You can find more information about The Global 5000 database by clicking here

Comeback Kids – IT Spending and Growth in Construction and Retail Markets

September 4, 2012 / hhenry / 0 Comments

During the global economic crisis in 2008 and 2009, the financial industry had all kinds of problems as we are all aware which not surprisingly impacted IT spending. Since then they seem to be doing just fine. But other problems have lingered. One of those challenging segments is the construction industry which has taken a lot longer to recover. In addition, particularly in the US, retail drives so much of the economy and that industry suffered as well.

Fast forward to 2012 as the economy has been on the mend and we look back at the progress over the past few years and see 2 industries that have seen solid growth in IT spending along with growing revenue.

Among the Global 5000 companies, there are 210 companies in the Construction industry and 340 companies in Retail.

Over the past few years, the Construction companies saw year over year changes as follows:

2008 grew at 12.3%
2009 was negative – 7.6%
2010 grew again at 6%
2011 surged ahead 12.2%

Revenue for Retail companies did not fall as much and did not bounce back as high either.

2008 growth was 6.9%
2009 was negative – 2.6%
2010 grew again at 5.6%
2011 showed growth at 7.7%

Looking at IT spending in those industries, the Construction companies in the Global 5000 spend approximately $11 billion annually while those in the Retail industry spend over $62 billion per year … both substantial sums.

In both cases, the IT spend in these two sectors grew more than 9% from 2010 to 2011 and for those providers in the right spot to watch these comebacks, the rewards can be attractive.

Harry Henry’s Global 5000 Insights

July 31, 2012 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Colleague and market research expert Harry Henry is filling a hole in the company research market with his Global 5000 database of the 5000 largest global companies, including both public and private businesses. This is already an important resource for marketers who need to understand global market opportunities more than they ever have before – and that most likely means you, since most of our readers are from mid-to-large size companies who either are or should be growing their international business.

While we focus on the information technology strategies for reaching and engaging with customers and colleagues everywhere, you still need to decide which markets and regions, which industries, and which leading companies to target for growth. Harry has generously agreed to provide regular posts providing insights from his database to help inform those decisions.

Read Harry’s first post China Eyes Canadian Energy Resources. You can follow Harry’s posts on this blog at https://gilbane.com/author/hhenry/. Or you can reach him directly.

China Eyes Canadian Energy Resources

July 31, 2012 / hhenry / 0 Comments

One of the interesting news announcements this week, was about CNOOC of China buying Nexen of Canada – an energy exploration company. CNOOC is a $38 billion company and Nexen reported revenues of $6.3 billion in 2011.

For any company looking at global markets, there are some interesting developments wrapped up in this announcement.

This is a major step for a Chinese company, a major step in the energy industry and a major step for Canada. Consider a few facts compiled from our Global 5000 database.

Canada’s energy assets are substantial. Looking at Global 5000 companies in Canada, right behind Financial Services, Oil & Gas and Mining are the next 2 largest industries representing 27% of the largest companies in Canada. So, as the world thirst for natural resources and energy continues to climb … Canada will get more attention.
Looking at growth rates over the past few years, China has grown faster than the rest of the market. So has the Oil & Gas industry as well as the Mining industry. The total Global 5000 grew 11.4% in 2010 and 12% in 2011. China based Global 5000 companies grew 33.5% and 30% in 2011. Oil & Gas firms reported growth of 22% and 24% for those same years while mining companies grew even more at 40% in 2010 and 30% this past year. So, this deal hits right at the heart of a number of growth segments.
This is a second big deal by a Chinese company in the North American market — see our article earlier this year on the Chinese bank ICBC entering the US market via an acquisition.

The bottom line here is that China’s economy is huge, its growth — even at lower rates — is still a huge differential and it has a continually increasing need for energy resources. Canadian companies have those resources so we can expect more deals and activity.

For more information about The Global 5000 and companies like these that are included, visit the database page.

Documents are dead – or not

May 22, 2012 / Frank Gilbane / 1 Comment

Last night I somehow stumbled on a link to the March 19, 1998 issue of David Weinberger’s JOHO (Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization), where David posits The Death of Documents and the End of Doneness – because of the Web of course – and I disagree that documents are dead. David and I are old friends and I am sure we each had more to say to each other on this topic, but I can’t remember if he ever accepted my corrections to his obviously misguided position, whether he just decided to spare me the embarrassment of pointing out gaping inconsistencies in my argument and gloat privately, or whether we figured out a weaselly way to agree. I have a vague memory of the latter – perhaps in an AIIM publication?

In any case, I was gratified to find that I still agree with my 1998-self, and will check with David to see whether he is the same self he was. You can reach your own conclusions and also have a fun read (if you don’t know him, David is very funny) at http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-march19-98.html.

Update:
See David’s response at http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2012/05/22/documents-dead-or-grizzled-survivors/

David:
Aha! We now agree and in a non-squirrely way. You didn’t have to say you were wrong, now I am going to have to admit the same when it’s my turn. 🙁 …Besides, you were only a little wrong…

W3C Launches Linked Data Platform Working Group

May 15, 2012 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

W3C launched the new Linked Data Platform (LDP) Working Group to promote the use of linked data on the Web. Per its charter, the group will explain how to use a core set of services and technologies to build powerful applications capable of integrating public data, secured enterprise data, and personal data. The platform will be based on proven Web technologies including HTTP for transport, and RDF and other Semantic Web standards for data integration and reuse. The group will produce supporting materials, such as a description of uses cases, a list of requirements, and a test suite and/or validation tools to help ensure interoperability and correct implementation.

A rarity these days – an announcement that used ‘data’ instead of ‘big data’! And the co-chairs are even from IBM and EMC.

Making big data analytics accessible to marketers

March 28, 2012 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

The recent announcement of SAS Visual Analytics highlights four important characteristics of big data that are key to the ability of marketing organizations to use big analytic data effectively:

Visualization is a challenge for big data analysis and we’ll continue to see new approaches to presenting and interacting with it. Better visualization tools are necessary not just because those who aren’t data scientists need to understand and work with the data, but because the increased efficiency and time-to-reaction to the data is critical in many cases – especially for marketers who need to react with lightening speed to current user experiences.
In case it isn’t obvious, visualization tools need to work where marketers can access them on web and mobile platforms.
In-memory data processing is necessary to support the required speed of analysis. This is still rare.
Big data is not only about unstructured data. Relational data and database tools are still important for incorporating structured data.

SAS is far from the only company driving new big data analytic technology, but they are the biggest and seem determined to stay on the front edge.