Netezza was a sponsor of the recent Business Objects Insight User Conference in Orlando, and I wanted to share some of my quick impressions of the event.
In listening to the executive keynotes and various track sessions, what crystallized for me was a new level of appreciation for Business Objects’ (and in general the BI industry’s) drive towards improving the BI user experience. I refer to ‘user experience’ in a very broad sense here encompassing themes such as functionality (e.g. allowing users easy access to unstructured data alongside structured data), ease-of-use (e.g. interface design and adoption of data visualization techniques), flexibility (e.g. better integration with other desktop tools such as Adobe, new business models to consume BI as a service) and performance (e.g. use of smart caching). This to me, more than anything else, marks the impending arrival of mainstream operational BI. As BI adoption and penetration in organizations increases, there is real demand/need to expand the use cases that the BI tools can address, while minimizing the level of user expertise required to operate the tools.
And the SAP acquisition of Business Objects also provides a glimpse into the future of operational BI. With Business Object’s BI expertise, and SAP’s know-how of the world of business processes, these companies have the opportunity to accelerate the creation of an entirely new functional experience for the organization that combines their areas of expertise in one seamless user experience, and renders BI truly operational.
Something else also struck home for me. This is more of an observation of what I thought wasn’t said, or better put, wasn’t underscored with enough emphasis. While it’s really exciting to see some of the new functionality that is in development and think through the possibilities, BI users today are hindered by significant challenges. These manifest themselves in several forms – slow running reports and queries, inability to access data at the right depth to run analyses that are of interest and long delays associated in waiting for the technical infrastructure to be adapted to changing business needs. Across the Netezza customer and prospect base, and regardless of BI tools in use, these are themes that we hear over and over again. As I sat there and listened to the demos and presentations of what’s coming tomorrow, I could not help but think about how much more powerful the message could be, if users weren’t stuck struggling to use what they had access to today.
The point above may seem a bit Netezza or database-centric, but I had the chance to talk to several people who attended the conference and they all shared the same feeling on one level or another. At the end of the day, the BI tool sits on top of a database, and if the foundation is weak – i.e. the database cannot keep up with the user – it becomes the choke-point. The only options at the tool level then are for the BI tool to work around the database (drives complexity and cost), and or impose analytic limitations on the user (dilutes the value of BI). The tradeoffs inherent to these approaches are very limiting and/or in-efficient and cannot scale effectively.
Looking forward on the BI horizon, the mainstream arrival of operational BI will add to the existing challenges that organizations face as the number of users increases. Therefore it will become even more imperative for organizations to think through their end-to-end BI infrastructure, database to user BI tools and ensure that the right pieces are in place to capitalize on the true promise of BI.
Vishal Daga ]]>by Vishal Daga - Netezza, Director of Partner Marketing
"You have a little bit of talent, a certain amount of good fortune and a lot of hard work in pursuit of whatever truth you can find in it, and if you are really lucky, a terrific partner and I have that and those four things worked out for me."
MAS*H, Cold Mountain and Pride and Prejudice (1935-)
- Donald Sutherland, film and television actor and star in such hits as The Dirty Dozen,
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Thinking Inside the Box |
October 2007 |
In my last post, I covered the kickoff of the 3rd annual International Netezza User Conference (NUC07) sessions. This posting and one to follow it will cover days two and three, hopefully giving readers a sense for the high-level discussion points and content of the conference. By early Tuesday morning, nearly all of the 500 attendees to this year's user conference were on scene and by the time we began the morning's activities, there was a buzz of excitement in the air. Some people had already seen some of the things Netezza was unveiling around Streaming Analytics with an early-morning tour of the "Netezza Developer Network Showcase" area and were anticipating what might be discussed in terms of Netezza's "Company Vision" and "Technology Direction" presentations to follow. Day 2: Tuesday, 25th September With a combination of statements about present trends, a vision for the future and some interactive, live demos, Jim talked about "the art of the possible" and made the case for a new approach spanning "traditional BI" and "mission critical analytics". He discussed Netezza's family of streaming analytic appliances in a vision fulfilled by Netezza's work with partners and others in the broader Netezza Community. The live demos spanned scoring, geospatial and image analysis and Jim's demo even managed to help nab the "culprit" of SPUBox-gate, catching Bobby "White Shoes" Doyle in the act of making off with a SPUBox (more on them later) - as you can see in the above three clippings from video that captured the act in progress. Nearly all of them came off without a hitch and the audience was treated to a bit of just what is possible with streaming analytics. Following Jim, was VP of Technology, Michael Sporer with his presentation of technology direction and how it may impact Netezza's product portfolio direction in the days ahead. Michael provided the perspective of the keystone hardware, software and networking technologies and innovations on which Netezza relies, what their relative potential was for advancement over the next several years and the influence we anticipate them having not only on Netezza's product direction, but more importantly on emancipation and dissemination of advanced analytics from the cloistered sanctum of the data center to the edges of the enterprise. Most of the remainder of Tuesday was filled with business and technical track sessions, provided by Netezza customers, partners and employees. But a room that received a lot of attention throughout the day on Tuesday and into Wednesday was the Netezza Developer Network (NDN) showcase. The showcase, with its ten SPUBoxes suspended from neo-industrial scaffolding, was transformed from a store of potential energy around streaming analytics in the early morning hours to a bustling center of kinetic activity and energy by noon. Attendees to the conference were able to see, first-hand some of the ideas and applications that are part of the Netezza Developer Network spanning ten different functioning demonstrations. After the morning general sessions had concluded, we spent the bulk of the remainder of the day in business and technical track sessions. Customer case studies were presented by eight customers, including Virgin Media, Nationwide, NYSE Euronext, Ross Stores and Guy Carpenter alongside four partner case studies presented by Business Objects, MicroStrategy, Cognos and Unica. These business tracks included information about customers with the following characteristics: One of the pleasant surprises, for me at least, was the level of interest in the technical track sessions, many of which were filled to capacity. Based on this and feedback we received from the conference, I'm sure we'll be looking at ways to provide more possibilities for attendees to attend more of the technical track sessions in 2008. We finished the day Tuesday with the party/event of the conference as attendees were taken by motorcoach to Cyclorama in Boston's South End for a night of food, music and spirited participation in the video games. The games included virtual skateboarding, auto racing, skiing and several instances of Nintendo Wii games of golf, tennis, baseball, bowling and boxing. All told, at least five Wii consoles along with other sundry electronic "tools" were given away at random to lucky winners that night. One of the most enjoyable parts of the Cyclorama event for me was watching the various interactions of people with the Wii electronic game "appliance". Because of the easy interactivity it enables, this device is disrupting the video gaming industry - and its captivating attraction was quite evident at our event. Gaming "pros" and neophytes were interacting with it, and providing all the body English one would expect on a tennis court, baseball field or bowling alley. Observing the panoply of those motions across 5-6 Wii stations from about 100 feet away was pure hilarity. Following Cyclorama, it was back to the hotel (or on to other Boston evening venues to be discovered), in preparation for Wednesday's day-long activities. More on those in my next "Gateway to Insight" posting... "The 'Core' of the Matter"
"Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), lecture, August 31, 1837, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard University
Tuesday morning's formal agenda kicked off with an opening address from Netezza President and COO, Jim Baum. Jim provided an overview and insight into Netezza's vision for what is possible in analytic appliances, now and into the future.
In addition, Netezza staff - in some cases with customers and/or partners jointly presenting - hosted eight technical track presentations. These spanned current capabilities, such as how customers are using the NPS appliance in large, innovative, operational BI deployments, to recent Release 4.0 enhancements and performance measurements to best practices in migration strategies to Netezza. These sessions even included an in-depth view of a moment in the (brief) life of a query inside the NPS system and Netezza's near-term product direction. 
"So Good, So Good!"
"Was in the spring
"Hands, touchin' hands
"Sweet Caroline After a long, self-imposed quiet period hiatus, "Thoughts from..." is officially back on the air. We've been away for quite some time and in our absence, as you may have noticed, Netezza (ticker symbol: NZ) enjoyed a successful initial public offering on the NYSE Arca exchange back on the 19th of July. More recently, Netezza has just come off four major successes, including its 3rd annual International Netezza User Conference sessions as well as the recent launches of the NPS® Release 4.0 system software, the redefined & broadened role of analytic appliances and the Netezza Developer Network (NDN).
In coming days I'll discuss the strengths and benefits of release 4.0, Netezza's streaming analytic™ appliances and the NDN, but in this and the next one or two postings, I'll concentrate specifically on the highlights from the 2007 User Conference.
There were over 500 customer, partner, prospect and analyst attendees at this year's conference (about 50% growth over the 2006), spending 2 1/2 information-packed days, learning, sharing of ideas, networking and "gaming" with us in the glorious 'Indian Summer' sunshine of late-September in Boston.
Day 1: Monday, 24th September Catherine discussed the growing global nature of NYSE's business along with the demands this globalization of exchange markets is putting on business intelligence and near real time analytics in her business. Through acquisition, partnership and organic growth, the NYSE has demonstrated significant market expansion over the past several years and their strong movement into the markets has ratcheted up their need for robust, high-performance business analytics on a global basis. She also spoke of Netezza's listing as the first technology company on NYSE Arca exchange as another sign of the increasingly robust actions NYSE has taken to bring innovative, high-tech companies into their trading platforms.
Geoffrey put the primary themes of his recent book, Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution into the framework of technology companies in his talk, entitled, "Business Network Transformation: The Next Big Challenge for IT". His discussion included the importance of understanding the difference between core- and context-level capabilities across a business' domain of goods and services and need to continue to innovate at the core while working within a broader business network to deliver on the context. Furthermore, he told the audience of 500 that it is encumbent on corporate leadership to understand that over time, everything that is "core" eventually becomes "context" and neutralized so the engine of innovation cannot sit idle; continued focus on differentiated innovation is key. "It's crucial," he said, "for companies to focus on the core to invent new, differentiated offerings and then to deploy that differentiation at scale."
I'll be coming back to Geoffrey's keynote presentation with a posting containing some additional reflections on some of his key points, particularly as they pertain to analytic appliances and Netezza, specifically. For now let's just say that he got the conference off to an outstanding, spot-on start for the evening, followed by noshes, drinks and networking 'by the boatload' at the Reception/Partner Pavilion just outside the main hall.
My next posting will cover the "core" of the conference - days two and three - with some of the highlights from the more than 30 Netezza, guest, customer and partner presentations that were covered. ]]>
"Where it began,
I can't begin to knowin'
But then I know it's growing strong
And spring became the summer
Who'd have believed you'd come along.
Reachin' out, touchin' me touchin' you
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would."
- Neil Diamond, lyrics from "Sweet Caroline", 1973
[Oh, and in case I forget to mention it, we are in a bit of a celebratory mood around Netezza headquarters these days as a result of the Boston Red Sox' return as champions of baseball a few days ago. Since Sunday evening, there's been nearly wall-to-wall Red Sox news and parade coverage around here in the local media, interspersed with the occasional news about the New England Patriots. If you were wondering about the title of this posting and the opening quote, perhaps this YouTube video I found online will help: Opening Day at Fenway Park, April 2007. "Sweet Caroline" has become as much a good luck charm/tradition in the middle of the 8th inning at Fenway Park as "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is at every park during the '7th inning stretch'.]
The event kicked off with a "Welcome" message from Netezza CEO & Co-founder, Jit Saxena, followed by two strong keynote speakers:
