Oracle Sets Sights on BI Leadership. Has it Picked the Right Target?

Oracle is not first in BI, and wants to change that – that was the clear message of a well executed, multi-site “real plus virtual” event with top executives showing off the result of a multi-year effort to rationalize and integrate a set of leading but overlapping components into a seamless suite. Oracle Business IntelligenceContinue reading “Oracle Sets Sights on BI Leadership. Has it Picked the Right Target?”

IBM Shows Broad Mobile Portfolio at Largest Lab

IBM employs 45,000 software engineers worldwide, and like all large firms, has been greatly expanding its overseas contingent, leading some in the US to complain that not enough is being done “back home.” In mid-June, IBM provided an answer with the opening of a new lab facility in the Boston suburb of Littleton, Massachusetts, oneContinue reading “IBM Shows Broad Mobile Portfolio at Largest Lab”

EMC Buys Greenplum – Big Data Realignment Continues

EMC’s acquisition of Greenplum, announced today as a cash transaction, reaffirms the obvious: the Big Data tsunami upends conventional wisdom. It has already reshaped the market, spawning the most ferment in the RDBMS (and non-R DBMS via the noSQL players) space in years. When I first posted on Greenplum over a year ago, I saidContinue reading “EMC Buys Greenplum – Big Data Realignment Continues”

Migrate From Mainframe? To What?

From Joe Clabby, http://www.clabbyanalytics.com Gartner, the industry’s preeminent information technology (IT) research and analysis firm, has published several reports and case studies over the past few years that promote the idea that IT buyers should migrate their applications off of mainframes and move them to other, more “modern platforms”.  Part of Gartner’s logic, it appears,Continue reading “Migrate From Mainframe? To What?”

The Mainframe Skills Shortage Urban Myth

Contributed by Joe Clabby (www.clabbyanalytics.com) In this CounterOpinion, we challenge the advice and opinions of the Gartner Group, a well-known and highly respected IT research and analysis firm, on the subject of IBM System z (mainframe) migration. In March, 2007, Gartner put forward research suggesting that, due to the aging of the current generation ofContinue reading “The Mainframe Skills Shortage Urban Myth”

Microsoft’s Parallel DW – Still Waiting

Microsoft’s SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) has been eagerly awaited for a long time. It still is. Though much of the news at the BI Conference running in parallel with TechEd in New Orleans (discussed here) was generally quite good, the PDW story was much less so. It’s late, and it’s not all there.

Oracle Exadata: Early Signs Promising

Exadata is looking good. In the past few months, I’ve had the chance to talk to several early adopters of Oracle Exadata V2, some in connection with a sponsored white paper Oracle has just published. It’s still early, but I see this product as a milestone, regardless of its commercial success. That is still toContinue reading “Oracle Exadata: Early Signs Promising”

Oracle’s Surprise Layoff: Is Snorkel (Sun + Oracle) Underwater?

From Rob Enderle, Enderle Group Mergers are very difficult to do, and while Oracle is one of the best at doing them there are degrees of difficulty.  On a scale of 1 to 10 the Sun acquisition by Oracle is likely an 11 and will probably fail.   Whether it takes Oracle with it may beContinue reading “Oracle’s Surprise Layoff: Is Snorkel (Sun + Oracle) Underwater?”

Microsoft Plays Where’s Waldo? With BI – Good Idea

In April, I was critical of the BI messaging I heard from Microsoft – as told, it was long on benefit adjectives and short on architectural clarity. But things have changed since then, and the Combined Tech Ed/Business Intelligence Conference made that very clear. Do I see more clarity because I now know more ofContinue reading “Microsoft Plays Where’s Waldo? With BI – Good Idea”

Is Microsoft the New Safe Harbor?

The following is a guest post from Ray Wang of Altimeter Group. I wrote a different title, but otherwise this is as it appears on his blog. Clients Now See Microsoft As The Neutral Vendor, Hence All The Questions Just less than 3 years ago, Microsoft was still perceived as part of the “evil” empire. Continue reading “Is Microsoft the New Safe Harbor?”