What bosses need to know about information technology
Updated: 2011-04-26 19:18:11
Bosses shouldn't cede control of their company's information-technology strategy to geeky middle managers, Jeanne Ross and Pe -More-
Predictive modeling: A possible answer to spiraling medical costs
Updated: 2011-04-25 20:02:57Predictive modeling isn't new. In fact, it's been around for decades. What is fairly new is using the technique to mitigate escalating medical costs in workers' comp claims.Insurance software can improve distribution channels, says expert
Updated: 2011-04-22 18:51:41The best use of software solutions for insurers is in sales and services distribution channels, writes Deb Smallwood. -More-P/C Insurance Growth May Continue Through 2011
Updated: 2011-04-22 12:30:39It is now quite likely that the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry will show two consecutive years of positive premium growth (2010 and 2011) – for the first time since 2005 and 2006, according to I.I.I. president Dr. Robert Hartwig. Dr. Hartwig made the prediction in his commentary on the industry’s 2010 year-end results. Positive premium growth for the [...]Application areas for SAS HPA
Updated: 2011-04-21 09:24:17When I talked with SAS about its forthcoming in-memory parallel SAS HPA offering, we talked briefly about application areas. The three SAS cited were: Consumer financial services. The idea here is to combine information about customers’ use of all kinds of services — banking, credit cards, loans, etc. SAS believes this is both for marketing [...]In-memory, parallel, not-in-database SAS HPA does make sense after all
Updated: 2011-04-21 09:23:41I talked with SAS about its new approach to parallel modeling. The two key points are: SAS no longer plans to go as far with in-database modeling as it previously intended. Rather, SAS plans to run in RAM on MPP DBMS appliances, exploiting MPI (Message Passing Interface). The whole thing is called SAS HPA (High-Performance [...]8 Experts: Happy Birthday Workers’ Compensation — Now What?
Updated: 2011-04-19 22:44:19This year marks the 100th anniversary of the workers’ compensation system in the U.S., as explained by Christopher J. Boggs, director of education for Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance, in Workers’ Compensation History: The Great Tradeoff! As Boggs writes, the …Notes on short-request scale-out MySQL
Updated: 2011-04-19 10:52:28A press person recently asked about: … start-ups that are building technologies to enable MySQL and other SQL databases to get over some of the problems they have in scaling past a certain size. … I’d like to get a sense as to whether or not the problems are as severe and wide spread as [...]Endeca topics
Updated: 2011-04-18 09:02:40I visited my then-clients at Endeca in January. We focused on underpinnings (and strategic counsel) more than on coolness in what the product actually does. But going over my notes I think there’s enough to write up now. Before saying much else about Endeca, there’s one confusion to dispose of: What’s the relationship between Endeca’s [...]Unpacking the EMC Greenplum Q1 sales disaster rumors
Updated: 2011-04-16 08:21:11A well-connected tipster believes: EMC Greenplum’s* revenue target for Q1 had been $35 million. Actual EMC Greenplum revenue for Q1 was $3 million, or maybe it was $8 million. EMC Greenplum had 75 sales teams trying to generate this revenue. In the past I might have called Greenplum for clarification, but they’re not knocking themselves [...]Attensity update
Updated: 2011-04-14 13:07:11I talked with Michelle de Haaff and Ian Hersey of Attensity back in February. We covered a lot of ground, so let’s start with a very high-level view. Two years ago, Attensity merged with two other companies in somewhat related businesses, thus expanding 4X or so in size. Due to the merger, Attensity now has [...]What Starcounter may be up to
Updated: 2011-04-13 18:55:47Starcounter seems to be offering an in-memory object-based/object-oriented/whatever short-request DBMS that also talks SQL. I haven’t been briefed at this point, and hence don’t have detail beyond what’s on their rather breathless web site. I’m guessing this isn’t an H-Store/VoltDB architecture, but rather something more like what Workday runs. Most of the crunch I found [...]Quotees should be briefed before quoters
Updated: 2011-04-13 08:47:10I just blogged about a company pre-launch because the news wasn’t actually embargoed (their website was up) and the press was asking me for comment. Those details are unusual, but I’d guess that the majority of quotes I give to the press are about news I haven’t been briefed on. When news is minor enough, [...]Use cases for low-latency analytics
Updated: 2011-04-11 04:59:10At various times I’ve noted the varying latency requirements of different analytic use cases, which can be as different as the speed of a turtle is from the speed of light. In particular, back when I wrote more about CEP (Complex Event Processing), I listed some applications for super-low-latency and not-so-low-latency CEP alike. Even better [...]Teradata integrates in solid-state storage
Updated: 2011-04-11 04:56:30For once, I think Teradata’s annual hardware refresh is pretty interesting, because of the integration of flash storage into its high-end “active enterprise data warehouse” product line. The essence of the announcement is: Teradata is rolling out a new appliance,* the 6680, which combines hard-disk and solid-state drives, relying on Teradata Virtual Storage. Teradata is [...]