Yesterday’s post on classifying demand generation systems prompted some strong reactions. The basic issue is how to treat ease of use when describing vendors.It’s hard to even define the issue without prejudicing the discussion. Are we talking about vendor rankings, vendor comparisons, or vendor analyses?- Ranking implies a single score for each product. The approach is popular but it leads people to avoid evaluating systems against their own requirements. So I reject it.- Vendor comparisons give each several scores to each vendor, for multiple...
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
How Do You Classify Demand Generation Systems?
Posted on 12:40 by Unknown
I’ve been pondering recently how to classify demand generation systems. Since my ultimate goal is to help potential buyers decide which product to purchase, the obvious approach is to first classify the buyers themselves and then determine which systems best fit which group. Note that while this seems obvious, it’s quite different from how analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester set up their classifications. Their ratings are based on market positions, with categories such as “leaders”, “visionaries”, and “contenders”.This approach has always...
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Two Acquisitions Extend SQL Server
Posted on 12:22 by Unknown
I don't usually bother to post "breaking news" here, but I've recently seen two acquisitions by Microsoft that seem worth noting. On July 14, the company announced purchase of data quality software vendor Zoomix, and just today it announced purchase of data appliance vendor DATAllegro. Both deals seem to represent an attempt to make SQL Server a more complete solution--in terms of data preparation in the Zoomix case, and high-end scalability with DATAllegro.Of the two deals, the DATAllegro one seems more intriguing, only because DATAllegro was...
Sybase IQ vs. Vertica: Comparisons are Misleading, But Fun
Posted on 07:16 by Unknown
I received the “Vertica Fast Lane” e-newsletter yesterday, which I am amused to note from its URL is generated by Eloqua. (This is only amusing because I’m researching Eloqua for unrelated reasons these days. Still, if I can offer some advice to the Vertica Marketing Department, it’s best to hide that sort of thing.)The newsletter contained a link to a post on Vertica’s blog entitled “Debunking a Myth: Column-Stores vs. Indexes”. Naturally caught my attention, given my own recent post suggesting that use indexes is a critical difference between...
Thursday, 17 July 2008
QlikView 8.5 Does More, Costs Less
Posted on 14:43 by Unknown
I haven’t been working much with QlikView recently, which is why I haven’t been writing about it. But I did receive news of their latest release, 8.5, which was noteworthy for at least two reasons.The first is new pricing. Without going into the details, I can say that QlikView significantly lowered the cost of an entry level system, while also making that system more scalable. This should make it much easier for organizations that find QlikView intriguing to actually give it a try.The second bit of news was an enhancement that allows comparisons...
Saturday, 12 July 2008
Sybase IQ: A Different Kind of Columnar Database (Or Is It The Other Way Around?)
Posted on 12:18 by Unknown
I spent a fair amount of time this past week getting ready for my part in the July 10 DM Radio Webcast on columnar databases. Much of this was spent updating my information on SybaseIQ, whose CTO Irfan Khan was a co-panelist.Sybase was particularly eager to educate me because I apparently ruffled a few feathers when my July DM Review column described SybaseIQ as a “variation on a columnar database” and listed it separately from other columnar systems. Since IQ has been around for much longer than the other columnar systems and has a vastly larger...
Thursday, 3 July 2008
LucidEra Takes a Shot at On-Demand Analytics
Posted on 15:05 by Unknown
Back in March, I wrote a fairly dismissive post about on-demand business intelligence systems. My basic objection was that the hardest part of building a business intelligence system is integrating the source data, and being on-demand doesn’t make that any easier. I still think that’s the case, but did revisit the topic recently in a conversation with Ken Rudin, CEO of on-demand business analytics vendor Lucid Era.Rudin, who has plenty of experience with both on-demand and analytics from working at Salesforce.com, Siebel, and Oracle, saw not...
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
The Value of Intra-Site Web Search: A Personal Example
Posted on 09:20 by Unknown
I’ll do a real post later today or more likely tomorrow, but I thought I’d quickly share a recent personal experience that illustrated the importance in e-commerce of really good in-site search.By way a background: having a good search capability is one of those Mom-and-apple-pie truths that everyone fully accepts in theory, but not everyone bothers to actually execute. So perhaps being reminded of the real-life value of doing it right will inspire some reader—maybe even YOU—to take another look at what you’re doing and how to improve it.Anyway,...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
