We’re all painfully aware of the overwhelming growth of Big Data. Yet, only 13 percent of organizations surveyed by Gartner have deployed solutions to overcome their Big Data challenges, despite 73 percent of respondents reporting they have invested or plan to invest in Big Data in the next 24 months, up from 64 percent in 2013. Salesforce.com recently announced its remedy for the Big Data challenge – the Analytics Cloud. The much anticipated offering was revealed at Dreamforce 2014, after it had been leaked by the company’s co-founder and CEO, Marc Benioff in a promotional tweet. Click here to read our views in Datamation about the important value propositions that underlie Salesforce.com’s Analytics Cloud offering.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff last month tweeted about the tentative agenda for this week’s Dreamforce and caused a tizzy by revealing a keynote session entitled “Analytics Cloud.” Although the company immediately denied that it was planning to unveil such a thing or that Benioff intentionally spilled the beans about the new offering, Salesforce.com did indeed launch its analytics cloud, called “Wave,” when Dreamforce kicked off on Monday. This launch represents a milestone moment for the cloud marketplace. Click here to read THINKstrategies’ perspective on Salesforce.com’s latest move in E-Commerce Times.

Join leading CIOs and other IT decision-makers and innovators at DataOnCloud, an exclusive invite-only event on Tuesday, June 4 in New York City hosted by Microsoft and Aditi Technologies.

DataOnCloud will give attendees meaningful insights and advice about how to leverage the ‘Cloud’ to generate real business benefits from today’s rapidly growing data sources.

I will be providing THINKstrategies’ perspectives in a keynote presentation and moderating a panel discussion during the event.

In addition to offering valuable presentations, DataOnCloud will also provide an opportunity for CIOs and other IT decision-makers to interact with industry experts and trade perspectives with their peers. Click here to see the full agenda and register for the event now to save your seat.

I look forward to seeing you on June 4 in New York City!

Actian’s acquisition of Pervasive Software is the latest example of the accelerating convergence of two of the most prominent trends in the industry — Big Data and the cloud. But, more importantly, the merger of the two companies illustrates that data integration is the linchpin to capitalizing on Big Data via a new generation of cloud-based analytics solutions. Click here to read THINKstrategies’ analysis  of the industry implications of the merger of Actian and Pervasive Software’s mutual capabilities in Sandhill.com.

Strategic Big Data and Actionable Analytics are two of the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013, according to Gartner. Yet only 12 percent have a big data strategy that governs their daily operations, a recent survey of 339 data management professionals by SAS and SourceMedia found.

In my view, this gap is the result of years of unfulfilled promises from a previous generation of business intelligence and data integration vendors who failed to provide organizations of all sizes with easy-to-use solutions to address their escalating needs. That was then. Today the number of tools available to make sense of Big Data is only growing, and that’s a good thing, because the need is deep.

Click here to read about innovative Cloud analytics services and solutions which are addressing these challenges in my latest guest blogpost in E-Commerce Times, and get a preview of … Read More »

A growing number of established and emerging software and technology vendors are seeking to take advantage of the convergence of Big Data and the cloud. None has made a bigger bet than IBM. Since 2005, IBM has spent more than US$16 billion on 35 acquisitions to boost its analytics capabilities. The company is hoping that this investment will generate approximately $20 billion in annual sales analyzing business data by 2015 — a $4 billion jump from its current level.

The company isn’t being coy about its goals. Click here to read my views about IBM’s big bet on Cloud analytics. And, don’t forget to attend the Cloud Analytics Summit on Thursday, May 2 in NYC, hosted by THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace and Rising Tide Media.