The Growth of The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things has been growing into the technology sector and becoming the latest hot topic. Recently I read two interesting articles about the growth of the Internet of Things. Vala Afshar published a good article in The Huffington Post, explaining in detail what is the Internet of Things, what are their consequences, challenges, opportunities and concerns. Defining the Internet of Things (IoT): simply a concept wherein machines and everyday objects are connected via the Internet. Within the IoT, devices are controlled and monitored remotely and usually wirelessly. Afshar published slides with 40 IoT solutions:

According the article, the growth of Internet of Things opens up opportunities for businesses and people with the right skills. These skills include network design, data analysis, data security, and engineering. Mckinsey projects the need for 1.5 million additional managers and analysts "with a sharp understanding of how big data can be applied" in the United States. Gartner has predicted there will be 4.4 million global big data jobs by 2015, only one-third of which will be filled.

IDC predicts that the IoT will include 212 billion things globally by the end of 2020. IDC's Vernon Turner said: "The momentum of the Internet of Things is driven by a number of factors. There is no doubt that business and consumer demand exists and will continue to expand for IoT solutions. I expect the current IoT use cases are just the tip of the iceberg". Some enablers to the rise of IoT include:

. Ongoing development of smart cities, cars, and houses
. Enhanced connectivity infrastructure
. An increasingly connected culture.

Gil Press also published a good article in Forbes entitled: It's Official: The Internet Of Things Takes Over Big Data As The Most Hyped Technology. He mentioned that Gartner recently released its latest Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. The Internet of Things, says Gartner, “is becoming a vibrant part of our, our customers’ and our partners’ business and IT landscape.”

Source: Gartner, August 2014

In its Hype Cycle Special Report Gartner says that “While interest in big data remains undiminished, it has moved beyond the peak because the market has settled into a reasonable set of approaches, and the new technologies and practices are additive to existing solutions.”

The data quality issue

Search Data Management published today an article commenting a recent survey by Gartner on data quality issues. In the article, called Poor data quality costing companies millions of dollars annually, Jeff Kelly comments that according to a recent survey conducted by Gartner, the average organization surveyed said it loses $8.2 million annually through poor data quality.

Ted Friedman, the Gartner analyst that conducted the research, said in an interview: Much of this loss is due to lost productivity among workers who, realizing their data is incorrect, are forced to compensate for the inaccuracies or create workarounds when using both operational and analytic applications.


Some numbers from the Gartner study:

- in the 140 companies surveyed, 22% estimated their annual losses resulting from bad data at $20 million. Four percent put that figure as high as an astounding $100 million.

- losses could be even higher were it not for the increasing adoption of data quality tools. According to Gartner, the data quality tools market grew by 26% in 2008, to $425 million.

- around 50% of survey respondents said they are using data quality tools to support master data management (MDM) initiatives, and more than 40% are using data quality technologies to assist in systems and data migration projects.

- less than half of respondents currently use data quality tools at the point of capture or creation, which often happens in operational systems, like CRM software.

Some comments and considerations by Ted Friedman:

- The tools are not cheap, so people are doing the right thing by finding multiple ways to use them.

- To improve data quality throughout the organization, vendors must make data quality tools simpler to use so that business types can use them and begin taking responsibility for the quality of their own data.

- Providing data profiling and visualization functionality (reporting and dashboarding of data quality metrics and exceptions) to a broader set of business users would increase awareness of data quality issues and facilitate data stewardship activities

- Historically, data quality tools have been most often used in an offline, batch mode -- cleansing data at a point in time outside the boundaries of operational applications and processes. Gartner advises clients to consider pervasive data quality controls throughout their infrastructure, ensuring conformance of data to quality rules at the point of capture and maintenance, as well as downstream.

- Organizations are increasingly applying data quality to data domains other than customer data, but more still needs to be done. The quality of financial data in particular costs some companies considerable money in the form of fines for incorrect regulatory filings.

The data quality is one of the most important issues in the organizations nowadays. All the organizations around the world have problems with the data quality, to a greater or lesser degree. They need to have data accurate, because the organizations can have a well implemented BI, but if their data are not accurate, they will make decisions using unreliable information.

The convergence of Business Intelligence and Collaboration software

Today, Search Data Management published an article, talking about the collaboration software convergence with business intelligence applications, called Collaboration software could unlock Business Intelligence's full potential, written by Jeff Kelly, Search Data Management's News Editor. In the article, he wrote that with the continued adoption of collaboration software in the enterprise, the trend is the convergence of Business Intelligence and collaboration software. "Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wikis, vendors and industry analysts agree, have the potential to dramatically expand the reach and effectiveness of BI and data analytics throughout the enterprise.", Jeff wrote.

According the article, "with BI embedded in collaboration portals, the thinking goes, workers will no longer have to email reports to dozens of people and then spend hours or days aggregating and analyzing their responses, which come at different times and could be spread out among different branches of an email chain. With collaboration software, they can share the same report on a blog or in a wiki and instantly see their colleagues' input."

He mentioned opinions of some highly regarded professionals, as Mani Gill, vice president of SAP's Business Objects OnDemand division; Guy Weismantel, director of business intelligence marketing at Microsoft and Rita Sallam, Gartner's analyst.

Mani Gill said: "We really think collaborative software can take business intelligence to the next level." SAP last week announced an OEM partnership with Jive Software in which Jive customers will have the ability to embed SAP Business Objects interactive reports, dashboards and search capabilities in their Jive collaboration portal.

Another potential benefit of converging BI and collaboration tools is increased transparency, according to Rita Sallam. She explained: "Right now, we don't really have a way to measure and link all the inputs that go into a decision. By combining BI and collaboration capabilities, we'll move a step in the right direction. Taking that a step further, you can identify successful decision makers and successful decision making patterns."

The convergence of BI and collaboration software can improve decision making by giving more power to the workers closest to the business problem, according to Guy Weismantel.

The convergence of BI and collaboration software also creates security and privacy concerns. Decisions must be made around which data different employees are authorized to see. IT must put controls in place to enforce those rules.

The convergence of BI and collaborative software promises to be a long and potentially complex process, however -- one that is just beginning. The good news is that many BI vendors – including Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and even EMC and Google – have the pieces in place to create out-of-the-box BI/collaboration products, she said, but they still have a long way to go in terms of making the process seamless, Sallam said.

This is a good article, with the accelerated growing of the use of social networks and collaboration software; and also the use of collaboration software in the organizations, the trend is the convergence of Business Intelligence and collaboration software, allowing the employees to share information easily through the organization.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms 2009

Recently, Gartner published its report called Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms 2009. This report is Gartner's opinion about the market of BI and their main vendors. Gartner defines the report: Early in 2008, the megavendors took ownership of a majority share of the business intelligence platforms market via acquisition. The repercussions of that consolidation are still working through the market, with a growing split in buying behavior becoming evident.

Gartner also published two other reports:

- Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites
Gartner defines the report: The market landscape for corporate performance management suites continues to dramatically change and grow. Users should evaluate vendors carefully according to business needs and their broader business intelligence and performance management strategies.

- Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems
Gartner defines the report: The data warehouse DBMS market is expanding at a record pace with new vendors, new offerings and high growth. We discuss this, the growth of appliance offerings and how data warehouse DBMS software-only vendors are responding with enhanced functionality and low-cost, market-entry solutions.

In the three reports, Gartner separates the vendors in four quadrants, considering the ability to execute and the completeness of vision. The reports define the market overview and also the strengths and the cautions of each vendor mentioned.

Gartner presents its 10 CIO resolutions for 2009

Gartner presented last week its 10 ‘CIO resolutions for 2009’ designed to help CIOs excel and deliver better personal and team outcomes beyond their core IT agenda.

“The unfolding economic crisis of late 2008 has created a more challenging situation than many businesses and most CIOs have ever experienced,” said Mark Raskino, vice president and Fellow at Gartner.

“In time of a recession, organisations have more time for introspection that identifies what the deep needs are and also creates demand on what IT can do,” said John Mahoney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Gartner’s 10 CIO resolutions for 2009 are grouped into four strategic themes:

Theme 1: Reinforce enduring strengths and assets
1. Start building an alumni network: To maintain legacy skills and complex experienced pools of labour, Gartner recommends CIOs establish alumni networks.

2. Stop being the exception that enforces the rules: In tense times, leading by example matters more than usual – from body language to dress code, and from vocabulary to attention-span.

3. Start scouting for key talent: As large numbers of laid-off people flood the market, some salary-level attrition is inevitable and even good people could find themselves without a position for months.

4. Start preparing for the unexpected: It’s important to challenge and develop the thinking styles and frame of reference of your leadership team as well as yourself.

5. Start using social systems yourself, visibly: Gartner said that CIOs need to start visibly using social networks themselves to kick-start their participation from other staff.

6. Start taking cloud seriously: CIOs need to start leading their organisations safely in this inevitable direction, or risk being sidelined by its progress.

Theme 3: Survive in 2009 without collateral damage
7. Stop ignoring people and opting for soft targets: There will be temptation to cut quickly in areas where staff is working on longer-term goals that suddenly seem of lower relevance.

8. Start offering your vendors a free lunch: CIOs and vendors must give ground and CIOs must signal a reset to a new style of interchange.

9. Stop fearing the future; start driving it: Internally, CIOs should also reflect conspicuous frugality but not be defined by it. They should resolve to occasionally and visibly splash out a little – where it really matters to staff moral such as training courses or software development tools.

Theme 4 and Resolution #10: Newer technologies to get experience of in 2009: With so much work to do, Gartner reminded CIOs that they need to protect the time to stay in touch and get ‘hands-on’ with some key technologies in 2009:

e-book readers
Google Chrome
Building mini cloud applications
YouTube as a default search engine for a day
HD teleconferencing

To conclude, Mr Raskino said: “It seems inevitable tough times will hit most sectors at some point in 2009, so CIOs shouldn’t wait for instructions to act. There’s plenty they can do to protect assets and thrive on the change opportunities – but they must start planning their way out right now.”

BI Predictions for 2009

In the end of last year and in the first days of this year, I have read several articles and posts about BI predictions for 2009. I mentioned in my Twitter.

I think to make predictions is not easy, mainly in Information Technology, and the history shows several examples where the predictions failed. Niels Bohr said: "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future."


Below are some summaries and comments about posts and articles that BI experts wrote with predictions for 2009:

Ken Rudin wrote his predictions in Lucidera's blog:
- Cloud computing will cause a shift in the BI balance of power from IT to business users
- Simplicity will be the driving mantra for both consumers and vendors of BI
- The continued drive for simplicity will cause a shift towards prebuilt analytic solutions with best practices built in, and away from generic toolsets
- Data interpretation will become a significant challenge for new BI users

He concluded: "So, BI is facing new users and new challenges. With the impact of cloud computing, a shift in the balance of power for BI, additional focus and urgency on delivering simple solutions, and a few new challenges arising around data interpretation, 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for BI."


Neil Raden published his predictions in his Intelligent Entreprise's blog, in a post called Surround the Warehouse: Prediction for 2009. Below is the summary of his predictions:
- The data warehouse has been positioned as the sole source of analytical data in organizations, but that is changing.
- BI tools like Microstrategy have to retool to be able to query multiple sources to satisfy a single query .
- There will be a lot of talk about this and the use of unstructured content, too, but I don't see that happening in '09.
- There will be a lot of noise about the Cloud and x-aaS (SaaS, PaaS, DaaS, etc.), but I don't see that gaining as much actual revenue as it will airtime
- The organizations may see the potential utility of revivifying their data warehouse strategy, but they just don't know how to do it. So despite all of the innovative and useful things the industry comes up with, the data warehouse legacy is like a big boat anchor.

He finished with: "And that's why I see the "surround strategy" of augmenting BI with operational data while leaving the data warehouse in place as the best opportunity right now."


Ted Cuzzillo wrote a post in Enterprise Systems, and said: "A variety of sources tell me that the financial crisis will be 2009's primary driver, as trends from early this year accelerate."

His predictions are:
- The few big tools will start giving way to many small tools
- Business users will take more of BI back from analysts
- Analytics will gain new importance
- BI's focus will sharpen on the human factor
- BI will surge in the mid-market


James Taylor wrote his Predictions for 2009 in his blog on December, focused on Decision Management, and also compared with some BI predictions (Ken Rudin and Ted Cuzzillo, both commented above):
- Cloud computing will impact decision management
- More use of analytics by systems rather than people
- More focus on rules from application and platform vendors
- More business rule vendors
- More rules in Business Process Management
- Business rules to decision management
- Pre-built decisioning components
- Simulation and scenario management
- More business user control


IDC published its Predictions for 2009, I already commented in a previous post.


Colin White wrote a post called BI Predictions for 2009: What Ever It Takes to Get the Job Done, in his B-Eye-Network's blog. I highlight:
- The business intelligence (BI) marketplace has often been immune to industry downturns. This is because companies often turn to BI in difficult times to help them identify areas where revenues can be increased and costs can be reduced. This is especially the case in front office sales, marketing, and support organizations. Given the potential size of the coming downturn, however, can even BI be immune? I doubt it.
- The BI solutions that will have the most impact in 2009 will be those that provide IT and business users quick and low-cost approaches for discovering, accessing, integrating, analyzing, delivering and sharing information in a way that that helps business users become more productive and more self-sufficient.
- open source software, BI software-as-a-service, low-cost application appliances, search, the integration of BI with collaborative and social computing software, rich internet applications, web syndication, and data and presentation mashups.
- line-of-business IT rather than the enterprise IT organization. This could result in a turf war where enterprise IT tries to control and govern the use of these new technologies by the business.


Krish Krishnan commented about data warehouse appliances, in a post in his B-Eye-Network's blog:
"my predictions about data warehouse appliances going mainstream is indeed happening. Year 2009 will be a significant year for all types of data warehouse appliances and their vendors"


Timo Elliott wrote a different kind of prediction, called Why Will 2009 be a Great Year for Business Intelligence?, where he analyzed the situation, based on data from IDC, Gartner and others articles, and divided in topics:
- The Economy is Awful
- IT Spending is Still Increasing
- Business Intelligence Spending Even More Robust
- Which Vendors Will Do Best?

His Conclusion: "So despite a weak economy, IT spending growth remains positive. Within IT, software spending is the healthiest. And within software spending, BI is a top priority."


Lyndsay Wise wrote a post in his blog, I highlight:
"However, one good thing about business intelligence and performance management in general is that because of the promises of helping increase performance while potentially lowering costs, organizations that tend to over spend and under perform will need to account for their spending more than in the past. Consequently, the role of BI may become more important in many organizations..."


Search Data Management published yesterday an excellent article called Experts forecast business intelligence market trends for 2009, by Jeff Kelly, where Wayne Eckerson, James G. Kobielus and Gartner's analysts shared their BI forecasts.

Wayne Eckerson, Director of research and services for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI):
- Analytic database platforms go mainstream
- Open source BI gets evaluated
- Packaged analytic applications gain traction
- Software as a Service (SaaS) picks up in the midmarket
- Next-generation dashboards emerge
- Analytical literacy improves
- More analytical sandboxes come to the fore
- BI goes green
- Advanced visualization corrals BI
- Event-driven analytic platforms hit the scene

James G. Kobielus, Senior analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research covering BI and data warehousing:
- BI moves into the cloud
- BI adopting Web 2.0 development paradigm
- BI growing more federated
- BI evolving into advanced analytic applications

Gartner Inc. - Various Gartner Inc. analysts covering BI, including Bill Hostmann, Kurt Schlegel, Mark A. Beyer, Rita L. Sallam, Bill Gassman, Nigel Rayner, Neil McMurchy, Neil Chandler, Matthew W. Cain:
- By 2012, business units will control at least 40% of the total budget for BI
- Through 2012, more than 35% of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets
- By 2010, 20% of organizations will have an industry-specific analytic application delivered via SaaS as a standard component of their BI portfolio
- In 2009, collaborative decision making will emerge as a new product category that combines social software with BI platform capabilities
- By 2012, one-third of analytic applications applied to business processes will be delivered through large-grained application mashups.


Despite the economic crisis, and based on predictions of those experts, I think 2009 will be a good year for Business Intelligence. I'm optimistic about it.


P.S.: The Crystal Ball picture is just for illustrate the post, I know that the experts mentioned here made their predictions based on data, information, and their expertise and knowledge of BI market.

Gartner: Business Intelligence (BI) is the top technology priority for 2009

Gartner, the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, identifies the Top 10 strategic technologies for 2009, and Business Intelligence (BI) is the top technology priority, according the Gartner’s 2008 CIO survey.

According Gartner:
"Business Intelligence (BI), the top technology priority in Gartner’s 2008 CIO survey, can have a direct positive impact on a company’s business performance, dramatically improving its ability to accomplish its mission by making smarter decisions at every level of the business from corporate strategy to operational processes. BI is particularly strategic because it is directed toward business managers and knowledge workers who make up the pool of thinkers and decision makers that are tasked with running, growing and transforming the business. Tools that let these users make faster, better and more-informed decisions are particularly valuable in a difficult business environment."

The others top strategic technologies for 2009 include:
- Virtualization
- Cloud Computing
- Servers — Beyond Blades
- Web-Oriented Architectures
- EnterpriseMashups
- Specialized Systems
- Social Software and Social Networking
- Unified Communications
- Green IT

Gartner to CIOs: Beware these 'fatal' business intelligence flaws

Search Data Management published yesterday an article entitled Gartner to CIOs: Beware these 'fatal' business intelligence flaws, by Jeff Kelly. The article is a phone interview with Bill Hostmann, Gartner's VP Distinguished Analyst, when he was at the Gartner Symposium last week. He talks about this year's list of fatal business intelligence (BI) flaws.


Bill Hostmann made several interesting comments:
"There's a whole new crop of recruits coming into BI" and "a lot of my contacts are with CIOs that have done BI in the past but have done it in very one-off ways".

CEOs are increasingly expecting enterprise-wide -- versus departmental -- BI deployments to help improve strategic and operational decisions. That means CIOs, rather than line-of-business managers, are now in charge.

"It's pretty typical as an organization moves through [BI] maturity, they're going to have failures," Hostmann said. "You're going to have learning mistakes. You may fall into them, but that doesn't mean you want to stop your BI initiative. That's not an option."

One of the most common flaws when deploying BI enterprise-wide, is IT embarking on the BI initiative without enough input from the business. The result is often a first-rate BI system that nobody uses because "its business value" hasn't been communicated to the rest of the organization.

Similarly, too many organizations fail to set out a comprehensive BI strategy – identifying how BI is expected to improve business operations and, ultimately, the bottom line -- before setting out with an implementation.

He said that the solution for both mistakes is for companies to create BI competency centers (BICC).

Poor data quality and a lack of common data definitions are two more potentially fatal flaws. In this case, he said: "You have to go back to the source systems to fix [data quality] problems, and nobody wants to do that".

He explains that too many people "mess around with [BI] calculations" when the results are not what they expected or contradict long-held beliefs.

To help do so, key performance indicators, business rules and analytics calculations should be embedded at the system level.That way, managers have less opportunity to manipulate the data.

Keep your options open When choosing a BI system for an enterprise-wide deployment, Hostmann said, it is important to evaluate vendors, both large and small, to find the best fit for your organization.

He finishes: CIOs must prepare themselves and the rest of the organization for change. Rigidity and BI is simply not a winning combination. "BI applications are going to evolve because the business is going to change," he said. "The kind of information and analysis that people do is going to change. So you have to have people's expectations set that this is going to take a while."

This is a very interesting article, in my opinion Bill Hostmann gave several good advices about how beware when you are developing or evolving a business intelligence initiative.

Gartner Event Processing Summit 2008

The Gartner Event Processing Summit 2008 happened this month (15 - 16 September 2008 - Stamford, CT) and here are some links with posts and articles commenting on the conference:

- Intelligent Enterprise
. Event Processing Meets Text: Reuters at Gartner - Seth Grimes
. Event Processing Summit Image Gallery: Getting to Real-Time

- Tibco's Blog - Paul Vincent
. Gartner Event Processing Summit 2008: highlights
. Gartner Event Processing Summit 2008: overview

- Colin Clark on Event Processing
. Gartner Event Processing Summit - Day 1
. Gartner Event Processing Summit - Day 2

- Complex Events Processing
Wall Street Systems Announces Partnership With Aleri to Enhance its FX Trading Solution with CEP Technology

- Opher Etzion's Blog
On Gartner EPS 2008

- Event Processing Blog - Louis Lovas
Thank You Gartner - Event Processing Conference #1 In the Books

Gartner BPM Summit 2008

The Gartner BPM Summit 2008 happened this month (10 - 12 September 2008 - Washington,DC) and here are some links with posts and articles commenting on the conference:

- Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley
. Gartner BPM: Opening Keynote
. Gartner BPM: Customers say the darnedest things
. Gartner BPM: Dynamic BPM
. Gartner BPM: SaaS and BPM
. Gartner BPM: Global 360/Citi Cards Imaging and Workflow
. Gartner BPM: Global 360/Carlson Marketing

- ebizQ - Peter Schooff
. BPM Success Story: Wells Fargo Talks From BPM Summit
. Building for Change with BPM: Pegasystems Explains From Gartner's BPM Summit
. Locating the Signal in the Noise with BPM -- A Live Podcast with Vitria

- DestinationCRM - Lauren McKay's Blog
Gartner BPM Summit 2008

- BPMfocus - Derek Miers
Gartner BPM Summit Report

The Almost-Meteoric Rise of SaaS on Wall Street

Wall Street and Technology published a couple of days ago, an article about the use of SaaS for Wall Street firms, written by Penny Crosman.

The article comments the success of some companies, mainly Salesforce and Sungard, in the SaaS market, and also their challenges and obstacles.

The article also mentions that Financial services is the second-largest industry user of SaaS, after the technology sector, according to Gartner. But most of the current financial services SaaS deployments are CRM applications. "Wall Street and financial services firms are more and more looking at [SaaS] from the CRM side of the fence," says Rob DeSisto, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

The biggest obstacle to SaaS in large firms is integration with back-end data storage and legacy systems. According the article, Gartner's DeSisto agrees that integration is the primary hang-up for SaaS on Wall Street. Although SaaS offerings can integrate with other programs, he notes, they operate more efficiently when the data is in the SaaS provider's data center.

Despite the obstacles and challenges, the SaaS has been adopted in all kinds of business and is here to stay.

Data Quality and Data Integration tools are converging

Gartner published this week its Data Quality Tools Magic Quadrant 2008. The evaluation is based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute.

According to Gartner, “Leaders in the market demonstrate strength across a complete range of data quality functionality, including profiling, parsing, standardization, matching, validation and enrichment. They exhibit a clear understanding and vision of where the market is headed, including recognition of non-customer data quality issues and the delivery of enterprise-level data quality implementations. Leaders have an established market presence, significant size and a multinational presence (directly or as a result of a parent company).”

The report placed DataFlux, Business Objects, IBM, Trillium and Informatica in the leaders' quadrant.

In the niche players' quadrant are the companies: Datatactics, DataLever, Uniserv, DataMentors, Netrics, Innovative and Datanomic.

The report detected that Data Quality and Data Integration tools are converging.

Nowadays, the data quality is one of the most important issues in IT.

I think the Gartner's Magic Quadrant reports are a good source to check what is happening in the market.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms 2008

Early this year, the Gartner published its report called Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms 2008. This report is Gartner's opinion about the market of BI and their main vendors.

It is interesting how they divide the vendors in four quadrants, considering the ability to execute and the completeness of vision:
- leaders (Cognos, Business Objects, SAS, Microstrategy, Microsoft, Oracle)
- challengers (SAP, Information Builders)
- niche players (Actuate, Panorama Software, Board International, Arcplan)
- visionaries (Tibco Spotfire, QlikTech)

They define the market overview and also the strengths and the cautions of each BI vendor mentioned.