Hannah Smalltree, News Writer

Solution Search:
What inspired your work on the Zachman Framework?

I was working for IBM at the time and we were trying to understand how companies get from enterprise strategy to implementation. We were thinking more specifically about system implementations. But as it turns out, the whole issue had to do with the enterprise - it's not simply a system issue. It's an issue More...
May 16, 2006
What is the IC's mission?

We are truly one of the only nonprofit, open organizations that allow all stakeholders a voice about our agenda, what we work on and how we deliver it to the marketplace. We're a group of like-minded professionals. The standards bodies and the vendors [and their sponsored groups] do a wonderful job and are very much needed, but More...
Feb 21, 2007

The secret to customer data integration (CDI) success, according to Dave Frieder, vice president of IT at XO Communications Inc., is breaking it into "bite-sized pieces."

"If you try to take over the world, you'll be sitting there for months in the analysis stage," he said.

Instead, Reston, Va.-based XO began its CDI project by matching basic customer information More...

Nov 3, 2005
If you're getting more confused about master data management (MDM) tools with each new product announcement, you're not alone.

Gartner and Forrester both recently released new frameworks and advice for understanding MDM-related technologies. The two firms' approaches are slightly different, but both study authors say they hope to help users make More...

Dec 5, 2006
Six years ago, when Jim Craig got his first Kyocera Smartphone, he immediately envisioned delivering mobile business intelligence (BI) on the device -- but not everyone appreciated his ideas.

When he shared a prototype, management "laughed [him] out of their office," said Craig, vice president and CIO of Rogers, Ark.-based Cooper Communities Inc., a land More...

Jan 18, 2007
It can take a mountain of data to arrive at the elusive "360-degree view" of a customer -- but as AOL Germany found, it's an effort that can really pay off.

With competition fierce among Internet service providers (ISPs), AOL Germany needed to do all it could to better understand customers and target its marketing offers. That was a problem when it had access to More...

Feb 7, 2007
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Big Blue kicked off its first-ever Information On Demand event with an elaborate stage show that included a live band, pyrotechnics, dry ice, colored lights and television personality Wayne Brady rapping about XML and semantics.

Then, approximately 5,000 attendees listened as IBM executives announced several new products and laid More...

Oct 17, 2006

We've learned a lot about customer data integration (CDI) in 2006. CDI is now widely recognized as a subset of the master data management (MDM) discipline, and the CDI software market is maturing, according to Gartner's Magic Quadrant. But as companies deploy CDI, they're also finding that there's much more to it than technology. Data governance programs and More...

Dec 13, 2006
Why did Gartner select you to speak at their business intelligence (BI) summit? Do you have an information technology background?

I know a lot about information technology, although that's not my background. I have worked for some of the biggest, the best and the most effective companies in that field for many years. The whole history of information More...
Feb 28, 2006
Did you invent the term "business intelligence"?

Guilty. It's true. I'm the father of BI.
Why did you feel the need for a new term? What's the difference between BI and analytics?

Fundamentally, I see analytics as simply applied business intelligence. Sometimes it's very simple, sometimes it's very sophisticated. But effectively, what you're doing is providing More...
Mar 21, 2006
What is your background in data management?

I have my masters in library science, so I come at it from a semi-structured or unstructured point of view. I moved from library science into records management in the IT space in 1988. Then I moved into the data modeling space, up through data architecture to the project lead, lead data architect, and More...
Aug 15, 2006
How is your organization reacting to the news of Oracle's plans to buy Hyperion? How do you anticipate that it will affect your company and your customers?

Such a move confirms that the traditional, standalone OLAP-based BI business model is dead. As the stack players swallow the traditional BI players, QlikTech will have many more opportunities to More...
Mar 12, 2007

Open source business intelligence (BI) is gaining some attention lately in a market that's newly supportive of open source development and actively seeking BI tools. Yet, analysts agree that it remains a work in progress.

Proponents of open source BI point to the low cost of entry, flexibility and a variety of applications now available, while more More...

Nov 9, 2005
Are pure-play data quality vendors a dying breed?

As technology vendors and IT organizations alike are placing ever greater emphasis on information quality, standalone tool vendors seem to be disappearing. Some have been swallowed up by major IT vendors. Other, formerly pure-play data quality vendors are focusing on new markets. The number of More...

May 4, 2006
Successfully negotiating with business intelligence (BI) vendors requires attention to detail, long-term vision and knowing when to quit, analysts say.

Companies seeking BI standardization often grapple with vendor negotiations, according to Kurt Schlegel, research director at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., who spoke at the analyst firm's More...

Mar 30, 2006

In the age of compliance, financial data quality is a requirement, not a luxury.

That's one reason Santa Clara, Calif.-based Hyperion Solutions Corp. today announced intentions to acquire UpStream Software, a Rochester, Michigan-based private software company that makes financial data quality tools. UpStream has been a Hyperion partner since 2002 More...

Apr 20, 2006
Easy as it is to type in a couple of key words and return thousands of Web pages with relevant information in under a second, finding internal business data is another challenge altogether. It's led vendors such as Cognos Inc., Information Builders Inc., IBM, and Oracle Corp. to make significant investments in adding Web searching to their applications.

More...

Mar 27, 2006
The best way to learn about a new place is to go there, but perhaps the second best way is location intelligence.

The tools and practices that make up location intelligence could be called the geographical version of business intelligence (BI). Location intelligence uses data about a location to help users make informed business decisions. Like BI More...

Apr 18, 2006

In a bid to bolster its business intelligence (BI) platform, Microsoft plans to acquire an analytics company.

Microsoft said it will acquire analytics and visualization software company ProClarity Corp., based in Boise, Idaho. ProClarity develops analysis and visualization technologies that work in association with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 More...

Apr 6, 2006
In a rapidly evolving market, the leading data quality tool vendors are focused on real-time monitoring of more than just customer data, according to the latest Gartner report.

The recent Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Tools, from Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., evaluated nine vendors on features such as data profiling, matching, parsing and More...

May 2, 2006
For a company moving into the big leagues of ticket sales, Microsoft Access was not a scalable system for business intelligence.

Last year, San Francisco-based StubHub Inc. began a major overhaul of its BI systems, ditching Microsoft Access and Excel in favor of enterprise-class best-of-breed tools, according to Rob Singer, the company's director of More...

May 4, 2006
When Brocade Communication Systems Inc. decided to move to on-demand application Salesforce.com, it discovered that integrating on-premise and off-premise data can be a major headache.

Brocade, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of shared storage products and services, chose Salesforce.com for sales pipeline and lead management. But it found that More...

Jun 13, 2006
The latest data management news is that industry is being transformed by new concepts -- and familiar best practices -- according to those on the front lines.

Close to 1,000 data professionals and thought leaders gathered recently at the DAMA International Symposium and Wilshire Meta-data conference in Denver to celebrate the organization's 20th More...

May 9, 2006
A new business intelligence (BI) system is helping the islands of the Bahamas break tourism records.

More than 5 million people visited the Bahamas in 2005, spending more than $2 billion -- two new records for the government-run Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, based in Nassau. BI helped the government and hoteliers better understand visitors and develop More...

May 18, 2006

Salesforce.com wants to simplify the process of mobilizing CRM and other on-demand (also called Software as a Service or SaaS) applications.

Salesforce.com announced today that it has acquired Santa Monica, Calif.-based Sendia Corp., a maker of mobile technology, in a $15 million cash transaction. The acquisition is the first by Salesforce.com Inc., a San More...

Apr 19, 2006
Data Compliance Podcasts
Layering Enterprise Security with Next Generation Access Management Podcast by Oracle Corporation
technologies are rapidly evolving to address the security and compliance challenges of today's business environment. Losses from online fraud and insider breaches are expected to cost companies $3.6 billion in 2008 and organizations now require cutting-edge solutions that can prevent fraud and
How real-time can ETL get? by Syncsort
Podcast to learn more about how to use ETL today to optimize demanding data environments as well as when and how ETL can effectively support near-real-time requirements. Extract, transform and load (ETL) has traditionally been one of the most popular data integration methods for business intelligence
Mastering the latest master data management best practices by Kalido
View this expert Podcast and learn how to prepare data environments for a master data management (MDM) implementation. Hear advice on developing MDM soft skills and learn how to measure the success of MDM implementations. Everyone, it seems, is talking about master data management
WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
CA Data Center Automation Manager Product Brief: A Tactical Approach to Simplify Service Delivery in the Data Center by CA
delivery lead time, and helps conserve valuable data center space and power resources. Today’s IT shops must ensure service delivery as user demand grows, resources shrink, and technologies become more complex—a daunting task when combined with higher performance expectations and compliance requirements. Read this white paper to learn how automating critical operational processes frees up your IT
Data Discovery and Risk in the Datacenter by Tizor
data risk by discovering critical data in the data center, monitoring and analyzing activity, providing detailed auditing trails, and reporting on all user access. Database activity monitoring (DAM) solutions mitigate data risk by discovering critical data in the data center; intelligently monitoring and analyzing the activity that affects it; providing detailed auditing trails; and reporting on all
See How Intel Xeon Processors Provide Data Traffic Optimization by Intel Corporation
simplify manageability, and reduce data center costs using the Intel Xeon Processor 7400 Series - the optimal virtualization server platform. Learn how you can maximize consolidation, simplify manageability, and reduce data center costs using the Intel Xeon Processor 7400 Series - the optimal virtualization server platform
Oracle Advanced Security Technical White Paper by Oracle Corporation
the risks associated with outsourcing their data center, disaster recovery facilities, or off-site backup sites. This white paper examines how Oracle Advanced Security provides complete standards-based encryption that does not require any costly changes to existing applications and can help organizations achieve operational efficiencies in today’s difficult economy
Constellation Energy Group by EMC Corporation
with external systems, applications, and data sources through a service-oriented architecture (SOA). In the future, the company plans to use BPS to leverage Documentum capabilities and processes in other systems. Thanks to BPS, employee from across Constellation Energy’s four business units now use the portal to request and track IT purchases. Each year purchasing and IT employees use the