BI Services Market Predicted To Double By 2016

In 2013, we will see a steep rise in outsourced data analytics services as CIOs seek help in providing timely, decision-supporting insights to business users. This is the conclusion of U.K.-based technology market research firm Pringle & Company in an extensive new report, "Business Intelligence Software & Services Market, 2012-2016." The research, conducted in the fourth quarter of 2012, suggests that the market for services provided by business and technology consultancies to develop and implement the systems required to generate...

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Big Data Master Plan: Time To Start

What's your big data strategy? Not sure? You're not alone. One of the problems with implementing a big data plan is that quite often people are confused by the term "big data." They're unsure of its meaning and what it entails, according to Information Builders chief marketing officer Michael Corcoran. Last year Corcoran was on a panel at a Gartner conference when the moderator asked the audience of more than 1,000 technology professionals how many of them were going to make a big data purchase in 2012. "I think two hands went up,"...

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Your Smartphone As Big Data Analytics Tool

Startup Euclid uses smartphone Wi-Fi signals to monitor customer movements and collect data for brick-and-mortar retailers. Many data analytics providers, including RetailNext, LightHaus, and Immersive Labs use in-store cameras to track and record the activities of retail shoppers. But Silicon Valley startup Euclid has an alternative solution for data gathering: the smartphone you carry everywhere you go. Calling its platform "Google Analytics for the physical world," Euclid's software can detect if a customer in or near a physical store...

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Driving Analytic Value From New Data

One of the best ways to improve the power of your analytics is to include some totally new information. The use of new information can enable huge leaps in the effectiveness, predictive power, and accuracy of your analytics. Most of the time, effort is spent trying to incrementally improve results by using existing data and information in a more effective manner. This isn’t as much because analytic professionals don’t realize that new data can be powerful as it is because new data only becomes available occasionally. As soon as a new and...

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Mashing, Mixing and Maximizing Data

Data Breakthroughs That Changed the Game Data is a game changer. 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day – and the data comes in all shapes and sizes.  Long gone is the notion that data is just for reporting, or collecting. Mix some innovative understanding of data with some good old-fashioned diligence, and voila – you’ve got a game changer. Data Access In 1989, physicist Tim Berners-Lee had an idea to create a single information network that would enable his co-workers to share all the computer-stored data at...

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Analytics Vendors Must Make Prediction Easier, Forrester Says

There were few surprises in the rankings in a "Forrester Wave: Big Data Predictive Analytics" report released on Monday, but the analyst firm had urgent advice for SAS, IBM and eight other vendors evaluated in the report: make predictive analytics more accessible to business users. The ten vendors in the report are, in Forrester's ranked order, SAS, IBM, SAP, Tibco, Oracle, StatSoft, KXEN, Angos Software, Revolution Analytics and Salford Systems. The rankings are based on 51 evaluation criteria rolled up into 13 overall scores on current...

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Google Now and Big Data

Few companies manage information better than Google. If there were an annual award for corporate information management (IM), I’m sure that Google would have won it–or had been in the top three–over the past decade. Why take IM so seriously? Because, quite frankly, without it, Google becomes much, much less valuable. Sans information, how does Google really help us? It helps us find what we want; Google doesn’t directly give us what we want. In other words, we don’t spend much time on google.com. We use it to go to the sites that let us buy...

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Roman Stanek on Big Data, Small Screen

Big Data and Mobile Apps Are Converging in the Enterprise Yesterday, I nearly drowned in a sea of extraneous data. In just one hour during an important conference call, my laptop overflowed with 300 e-mails from an email thread I frankly didn’t care about. Imagine how much time I could have saved if my system knew I was unavailable, and sent me only the two notifications I truly needed: That the customer I was on the call with owed us an invoice, and that my next appointment was delayed by half an hour. Clearly, enterprise users need...

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InsideSales.com Raises $35M From US Ventures For Predictive Analytics Platform

InsideSales.com has raised a $35 million Series B round of funding from US Ventures. The round follows a $4 million investment in August from Hummer Winblad, which also participated in the funding announced today. The previously self-funded company serves small and medium-sized business, offering predictive analytics to help serve inside sales professionals. Its algorithms are designed to tell the sales professional who to contact, when to contact, and how to tailor the message for the sales target. InsideSales.com is part of a growing...

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Investing In 2013: It’s About Time, Not Location

Editor’s note: Bill Lee is the CEO and co-founder of Twist, an investor in companies such as SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and Yammer, and board member of Big Fish Games. Follow him on his blog and on Twitter @westcoastbill. As an early investor and founder with more than 15 years experience, I constantly field questions about the existence of an angel/Series A crunch. Rather than join this debate, I tell investors and founders that it’s more important to focus on the next big thing and think beyond current trends, even in a tough financing/startup...

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