According to the story:

Big data analytics start-up SiSense Ltd. has raised $8 million from its current investors Genesis Partners, Opus Capital, co-founder Eli Farkash, and private investors.

According to IVC, SiSense has raised $13.5 million since it was founded in 2005. SiSense was founded by CTO Eldad Farkash, his son Eli Farkash, CPO Elad Israeli, and two others. Its CEO is Amit Bendov.

SiSense provides an end-to-end business intelligence solution, called Prism, which can be installed at enterprises within an hour and without the need for business intelligence expertise. The solution can carry out complex questionnaires in real time without the need for powerful computers; only an ordinary PC is required.

Keep an eye on this newcomer. We think a big investment like that means big things in the future. It’s reminiscent of earlier news that Nashville analytics powerhouse Digital Reasoning was getting a funding boost and then we saw them have a phenomenal year. We’ll be eagerly watching SiSense.

Patrick Roland

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

According to the story:

[I]nvestors are expected to follow the lawsuit filed Monday by Allan Nicolow alleging HP management concealed problems in the firm’s acquisitions of big data analytics firm Autonomy.

Nicolow filed the class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, accusing top HP execs of violating U.S. federal security laws by issuing “false and misleading” statements about Autonomy’s worth when it purchased the company for $11 billion in August, according to a report by the San Jose Mercury News.

HP stunned the financial world when it reported a staggering $6.9 billion net loss last week. It blamed the loss on a noncash impairment charge of $8.8 billion related to its acquisition of Autonomy, a British big data analytics firm that helps enterprises mine the data they generate.

This is simply a case of someone’s eyes being bigger than their stomach. Sure, HP has the money to get into big data, but as we’ve warned, they don’t have the experience. This is why analytic newcomers like IBM and HP will fail and dedicated firms like Oracle and Digital Reasoning will persevere. Mark our words.

Patrick Roland

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

According to the story:

In Las Vegas today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is having its first ever AWS re:Invent conference, catering to partners and customers of Amazon’s cloud platform.  And for the worlds of BI and Big Data, Amazon’s announcing what could be a ground-breaking new offering: its “Redshift” Data Warehouse as a Service.

Partners Gathering
While details are still forthcoming, there are already partnerships forming.  Specifically, open source BI provider Jaspersoft announced its support for Redshift today as well. The company explained that its data visualization and analytics technology can integrate with Redshift, and can be used in a standalone fashion or be embedded within applications.  Jaspersoft can connect to Redshift whether the former is running on-premise or in the cloud.

Amazon’s Web site for Redshift also notes MicroStrategy as a Redshift partner.

This is a fascinating partnership and one we could see sprouting potent fruit. We’ve been enamored with powerhouse pairings this year, such as Digital Reasoning’s many pairings and increased visibility over 12 quick months. Expect both Amazon and Jaspersoft to get a similar boost from this move.

Patrick Roland

According to the story:

Government has limited agenda space, that is the number of issues that policymakers can meaningfully address at any one time. Big data will clearly identify many gaps in existing policies and programs, but it will also identify issues not yet on the agenda and mobilize latent interests that had yet to organize and demand attention. While it is ultimately “good” to address these “silent” gaps, will big data possibly overload the very policymaking process we had hoped to make better with more information?

This theory seems a little more than alarmist to us. Being concerned that big data will “run” the government is totally offbase. If anything, it’ll make policymaking simpler by providing potent data. Think about how Digital Reasoning has helped the intelligence community track down terror suspects and increase efficiency. Anyone who is shy about government big data needs a fresh perspective.

Patrick Roland

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

According to the story:

Big Data Partnership, a leading ‘Big Data’ specialist service provider, today announced that it has been chosen as one of a few select organizations from around the world to participate in the Microsoft Big Data Partner Incubation Program. Big Data Partnership’s participation in the program followed a rigorous nomination process that was supported by Microsoft SQL Server global marketing managers and industry leads.

Under this agreement, the two companies will work closely together to drive customer engagement and the roll-out of Microsoft HDInsight, which is Microsoft’s distribution of Apache Hadoop for the Windows Azure and Windows Server platforms.

This is a massive partnership that we think is on par with the big Digital Reasoning and Connotate pairing this summer. We love seeing news of two different skillset-owning analytics firms coming together to produce something special. We don’t see it stopping in the new year.

Patrick Roland

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

According to the story:

Thanks to the advancement of analytical technologies, banks have the opportunity to use big data to drive growth. With the right data knowledge and strategic partnerships, the possibilities to generate revenue is massive, but there are many challenges along the way.

Firstly, it takes time and resources to mine the appropriate data – and analytics can cost a fortune.  Secondly, given the immense amount of data regularly generated by financial institutions, most organisations don’t even know where to begin to take full advantage of all of the information they gather. Thirdly, there’s a lot of talk about combining structured data with more fluid information gathered from the cloud, social media and mobile devices, but finding staff with the knowledge to do the job right is hard to come by.

Savvy move on behalf of the banks. Another way we’ve seen financial thinkers hedge their bets with analytics was when Wall Street institutions began using programs like Digital Reasoning’s Synthesys to reduce risk. No matter how it goes, we see financial establishments walking on firmer ground.

Patrick Roland

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

According to the story:

SumAll, a New York-based data analytics startup targeting small- to medium-sized businesses, is quickly getting bigger.  The company, which launched a year ago, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $6 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by Battery Ventures and included Wellington Partners. In June, we reported that SumAll had raised a $1.5 million seed round from both of those investors, as well as Matrix Partners and General Catalyst Partners.

SumAll, which reports that it has 15,000 users around the world, helps businesses analyze and visualize a comprehensive set of their most relevant data. For example, an e-commerce company could use SumAll to analyze their sales data from Shopify, PayPal or Magenta against traffic data or Facebook or Twitter social data.

This exciting news is reminiscent of last year’s news that Digital Reasoning landed a big financial boost. They went on to have a stellar 2012. We expect the same from SumAll in ’13.

Patrick Roland

According to the story:

Big data analytics is the disruptive technology bringing the 4^th aspect of Value to the already published TDWI’s 3Vs – Volume, Velocity & Variety.

• It enables business users to process every granular bit of data in quicker way removing the traditional need for sampling & then applying the models
• It encourages an investigative approach in users for data analysis since they get access to whole data
• It can reveal insights hidden in the data, which were previously too costly due to large data movements
• As per Gartner report, Big data is priority of SMB & it will drive $232 billion in spending through 2016.

Further education is easy. Forbes is a great place to start. The financial scion has a section dedicated to big data. They claim:

Good analytics is a combination of art and science, where the skillful analyst combines an entire matrix of prior knowledge with good judgment about authentically meaningful qualitative differences.

No matter how you slice it. Big data is something you need to know about if you don’t already. We foresee it being used in practically every field.

Patrick Roland

According to the story:

Get into a cab and it’s safe to assume the driver knows the ins, outs, shortcuts and potential traffic tie-ups between you and your destination. That kind of knowledge comes from years of experience, and IBM is taking a similar tact that blends real-time data and historical information into a new breed of traffic prediction.

IBM is testing the new traffic-management technology in a pilot program in Lyon, France, that’s designed to provide the city’s transportation engineers with “real-time decision support” so they can proactively reduce congestion. Called Decision Support System Optimizer (DSSO), the technology uses IBM’s Data Expansion Algorithm to combine old and new data to predict future traffic flow. Over time the system “learns” from successful outcomes to fine-tune future recommendations.

This is reminiscent of other stories about big data being used in surprising ways. First ones that come to mind include the healthcare compliance revolution that Digital Reasoning helped usher in recently.  Clearly, we’re seeing analytics everywhere we look.

Patrick Roland

According to the story:

Hewlett-Packard, making a large investment in the latest trend in IT, on Nov. 15 introduced two new servers — including one designed specifically for big data-type workloads.

Most enterprise servers already have the capability to handle processing, storage and analysis of sizable workloads in the terabytes-to-hundreds-of-terabytes neighborhood. But HP is talking about multiples of that: petabytes and multiple petabytes.

“Conventional siloed servers and storage just doesn’t work anymore,” Jim Ganthier, HP Vice President of Marketing and Operations for Servers and Software, told eWEEK. “With increasing storage requirements and business needs changing, we figure that this is an unsustainable approach. These siloed architectures are no longer viable. They cost you too much, require too many admins, use too many different tools — and frankly, from a physicality perspective, it’s no longer applicable.

This is great news, however it’s a little off the mark in our opinion. HP is a fine company, but what do they know about big data? We’d like to see the hardware giant team up with a sharp data analytics firm to really craft something that’ll make an impact. A company on the rise, like Digital Reasoning is perfect since it’s been making wise partnering moves all year. We don’t know this will ever happen, but it’s worth a look, HP.

Patrick Roland