The Business Intelligence Blog

From Business Week article -

Microsoft is buying Powerset, developer of what it hopes is a smarter way to search the Web. Powerset uses so-called “semantic Web” technology that brings up results based on an understanding of a word’s meaning and the context of its use. That’s in contrast to the method used by the major search engines, which work primarily by matching words in queries to those on Web pages. Microsoft announced the acquisition July 1 on a blog, saying it shares Powerset’s vision “to take search to the next level by adding understanding on the intent and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages.” News of Microsoft’s interest in Powerset was reported June 26 by industry blog VentureBeat. According to the article, Microsoft has offered more than $100 million to acquire the company. The purchase price was not disclosed.

The purchase could give Microsoft a big leg up in efforts to catch Google. Powerset and other semantic search engines outperform Google in some cases (BusinessWeek.com, 9/17/07). They respond particularly well when users want detailed answers to questions in specific subject categories for which there are a lot of Web pages with similar keywords, such as health or law. “Semantic search takes it to the third level,” says Eric Tilenius, an early investor in Powerset and Kango, which applies semantic search technology to travel.

TDWI is running a series on developing and deploying Data Warehousing, frugally. It’s a 3 part series. Read Part 1 and 2.

Although seemingly difficult, you can make choices, which allow for the beneficial realization of data warehousing while also minimizing costs. By balancing technology and carefully positioning your business, your organization can quickly create cost-effective solutions using data warehousing technologies.

There are a few simple rules to help you develop a data warehouse on a shoestring budget:

* Use what you have
* Use what you know
* Use what is free
* Buy only what you have to
* Think small and build in phases
* Use each phase to finance or justify the remainder of the projects

It’s also a must read for businesses which have enough business sponsorship and enormous resources. Tough times in the marketplace like these call for an economical way of staying ahead on the business curve. And that’s exactly the point of this series.

I like the detailed approach Nathan Rawling towards this topic.

From Info Week -

This week, WellPoint — one the nation’s largest health insurers — revealed it’s investing millions of dollars in a three-year project to build such a drug surveillance system in collaboration with the FDA and several academic institutions, including Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of North Carolina. The Safety Sentinel System will mine and analyze aggregate claims, lab, and pharmaceutical data from WellPoint’s 35 million members, who generate 1.4 billion “claim lines” of data each year, said Marcus Wilson, president of HealthCore, WellPoint’s medical outcomes research subsidiary, which WellPoint acquired in 2003 and is overseeing the new project.

Mind Tree, one of India’s leading Consulting firms is making enhancements to its RUBIC[Re- Usable Business Intelligence Components] solution frame work. More about it t B-Eye-Network -
MindTree’s RUBIC framework is a set of components that provide BI implementations with structured approaches to manage various design aspects, increase the quality of the solution and substantially save time to market.

RUBIC fixes two specific pain points in a typical BI &DW engagement 1) high data integration effort – by providing reuse of code in the data integration layer and 2) business solution value enhancement ­ providing a platform for ensuring business need coverage.

From VuNet -

Analyst firm Gartner predicts a slow growth in the business intelligence (BI) market during 2008 because of its increasing maturity.

Gartner expects the BI market growth rate to be at 12.5 per cent this year, and to move beyond $7bn by 2011.

Nigel Rayner, Gartner research vice president, said that as markets mature, growth rates tend to decrease and this leads to consolidation. “Increasing consolidation in a market reflects its maturity,” he added.

The BI market maturity is reflected by lack of differentiation between BI solutions, Rayner said, because of this it has become harder for vendors to deliver a competitive edge in capabilities such query, reporting and online analytical processing.

“This is a popular space that has been commoditised, and most organisations have technology that is mature and a proliferation of BI tools,” Rayner said, adding that the outcome of this is buyers are putting pressure on vendors to lower prices, and in many cases organisations have multiple platforms they need to rationalise.

In the war of intelligence, analytics is key says SAS.

Life Insurance Corporation of India’s ambitious Data Warehouse is underway.

B-Eye Network has an amazing article Customer Data Integration - FAQs and Fiction. Part 1 and Part 2.