Category: Analytics

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Open Source and Software Strategy

Curt Monash at Monash Research pointed out some ongoing open source GPL issues for WordPress and the Thesis issue (Also see http://ma.tt/2009/04/oracle-and-open-source/ and  http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/switching-things-around/).

As a user of both going upwards of 2 years- I believe open source and GPL license enforcement are general parts of software strategy of most software companies nowadays. Some thoughts on  open source and software strategy-Thesis remains a very very popular theme and has earned upwards of 100,000 $ for its creator (estimate based on 20k plus installs and 60$ avg price)

  • Little guys like to give away code to get some satisfaction/ recognition, big guys give away free code only when its necessary or when they are not making money in that product segment anyway.
  • As Ethan Hunt said, ” Every Hero needs a Villian”. Every software (market share) war between players needs One Big Company Holding more market share and Open Source Strategy between other player who is not able to create in house code, so effectively out sources by creating open source project. But same open source propent rarely gives away the secret to its own money making project.
    • Examples- Google creates open source Android, but wont reveal its secret algorithm for search which drives its main profits,
    • Google again puts a paper for MapReduce but it’s Yahoo that champions Hadoop,
    • Apple creates open source projects (http://www.apple.com/opensource/) but wont give away its Operating Source codes (why?) which help people buys its more expensive hardware,
    • IBM who helped kickstart the whole proprietary code thing (remember MS DOS) is the new champion of open source (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/) and
    • Microsoft continues to spark open source debate but read http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/07/02/a-perspective-on-openness.aspx and  also http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/
    • SAS gives away a lot of open source code (Read Jim Davis , CMO SAS here , but will stick to Base SAS code (even though it seems to be making more money by verticals focus and data mining).
    • SPSS was the first big analytics company that helps supports R (open source stats software) but will cling to its own code on its softwares.
    • WordPress.org gives away its software (and I like Akismet just as well as blogging) for open source, but hey as anyone who is on WordPress.com knows how locked in you can get by its (pricy) platform.
    • Vendor Lock-in (wink wink price escalation) is the elephant in the room for Big Software Proprietary Companies.
    • SLA Quality, Maintenance and IP safety is the uh-oh for going in for open source software mostly.
  • Lack of IP protection for revenue models for open source code is the big bottleneck  for a lot of companies- as very few software users know what to do with source code if you give it to them anyways.
    • If companies were confident that they would still be earning same revenue and there would be less leakage or theft, they would gladly give away the source code.
    • Derivative softwares or extensions help popularize the original softwares.
      • Half Way Steps like Facebook Applications  the original big company to create a platform for third party creators),
      • IPhone Apps and Android Applications show success of creating APIs to help protect IP and software control while still giving some freedom to developers or alternate
      • User Interfaces to R in both SAS/IML and JMP is a similar example
  • Basically open source is mostly done by under dog while top dog mostly rakes in money ( and envy)
  • There is yet to a big commercial success in open source software, though they are very good open source softwares. Just as Google’s success helped establish advertising as an alternate ( and now dominant) revenue source for online companies , Open Source needs a big example of a company that made billions while giving source code away and still retaining control and direction of software strategy.
  • Open source people love to hate proprietary packages, yet there are more shades of grey (than black and white) and hypocrisy (read lies) within  the open source software movement than the regulated world of big software. People will be still people. Software is just a piece of code.  😉

(Art citation-http://gapingvoid.com/about/ and http://gapingvoidgallery.com/

The Popularity of Data Analysis Software

Here is a nice page by Bob Muenchen (author of “R for SAS and SPSS” and “R for Stata” books)

It is available at http://r4stats.com/popularity and uses a variety of methods, including Google Insights, Page Rank, Link analysis, as well as information from Rexer Analytics and KDNuggets.

I believe the following two graphs sum it all up:

1 Number of Jobs at Monster.com using keywords

2 Google Scholar’s analysis of academic papers

Despite R’s Rapid Growth which is clearly evident, in terms of jobs as well as publications, it lags behind SAS and SPSS. So if you are a corporate user or an academic user, it makes sense to have more than one skill just to be sure.  What do you think? Is learning R mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive from learning SAS or SPSS. See http://r4stats.com/popularity for the complete analysis by Bob Muenchen

Also it shows the tremendous opportunity for companies like Revolution Analytics and XL Solutions ( http://www.experience-rplus.com/ ) as the potential for growth is clearly evident.

Browser Based Model Creation

Here are some fabulous applications at http://yeroon.net – if you are in the field of data and / or analytics you should try and dekko this site- it is created by UCLA’s department of statistics.

You can create stockplots ( something similar to based to Yahoo and Google finance which I have covered earlier)

or create ggplot visualizations

or create a linear model

Just using a browser to upload the dataset and thats all the hard/soft ware you need .

Note the background uses R. It would be interesting if companies like Revolution R, SAS and SPSS can do in this browser based computing ( maybe charge like Amazon Ec2 apis)

Kudos and credits to http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~jeroen/

Predictive Analytics World Conference

A note from Predictive Analytics World  Conference


Predictive Analytics World Coming October 19-20, 2010 to Washington, DC

Dates:        October 19-20, 2010
Location:   Washington, DC

Predictive Analytics World (pawcon.com) is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today’s commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors.  The conference delivers case studies, expertise and resources to achieve two objectives:

1) Bigger wins:  Strengthen the business impact delivered by predictive analytics

2) Broader capabilities:  Establish new opportunities with predictive analytics

The Top Experts

PAW’s October 2010 program is packed with the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors and business thought leaders, including keynote speakers Piyanka Jain of PayPal, Andrew Pole of Target and Program Chair Eric Siegel, Ph.D. — plus special sessions from industry heavy-weights Usama Fayyad, Ph.D. and John F. Elder, Ph.D.

Case Studies: How the Leading Enterprises Do It

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics.  Hear from the horse’s mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modeling, and what kind of business impact it delivers.

And the leading enterprises have responded, signing up to tell their stories. PAW’s October program includes over 25 sessions across two tracks – an “All Audiences” and an “Expert/Practitioner” track — so you can witness how predictive analytics is applied at

1-800-FLOWERS, CIBC, Corporate Executive Board, Forrester, Ingram Micro, LifeLine, MetLife, Miles Kimball, Monster, Paychex, PayPal (eBay), SunTrust, Target, UPMC Health Plan, Xerox, and Yahoo!, plus special examples from theU.S. government agencies DoD, DHS, and SSA.

October’s agenda covers hot topics and advanced methods such as social data, text mining, search marketing, risk management, survey analysis, consumer privacy, sales force optimization and other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

Join PAW and access the best keynotes, sessions, exposition, expert panel, live demos, networking coffee breaks, reception, birds-of-a-feather lunches, leading brand-name enterprise leaders, and industry heavyweights in the business.

Workshops

Three pre- and post-event workshops complement the core conference program:

“The Best and the Worst of Predictive Analytics: Predictive Modeling Methods and Common Data Mining Mistakes”
Instructor:  John F. Elder, Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Elder Research, Inc.
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/dc/2010/predictive_modeling_methods.php

“Hands-On Predictive Analytics”
Instructor:  Dean Abbott, President, Abbott Analytics
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/dc/2010/handson_predictive_analytics.php

“Driving Enterprise Decisions with Business Analytics and Business Rules”
Instructor:  James Taylor, CEO, Decision Management Solutions
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/dc/2010/predictive_analytics_work.php

Cross-Industry Applications

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, education, government, healthcare, high technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, retail and telecommunications

And PAW covers the gamut of commercial applications of predictive analytics, including response modeling, customer retention with churn modeling, product recommendations, fraud detection, online marketing optimization, behavior-based advertising, insurance pricing, sales forecasting, text mining and credit scoring.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors?  No matter how you use predictive analytics, the story is the same:  Predicatively scoring customers optimizes business performance.  Predictive analytics initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

Rave Reviews

“Hands down, best applied, analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work immediately. I’ve never been able to say that after any conference I’ve attended before!”

Jon Francis
Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

Read more:  Articles and blog entries about February and October’s PAW can be found at www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/pressroom.php

People Who Need People

Vendors:

*    Meet the vendors and learn about their solutions, software and services
*    Discover the best predictive analytics vendors available to serve your needs
*    Learn what they do and see how they compare

Colleagues

*    Mingle, network and hang out with your best and brightest colleagues
*    Exchange experiences over lunch, coffee breaks and the conference reception connecting with those professionals who face the same challenges as you

Get Started

If you’re new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways to position it at your organization, there’s no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics World.  See what other companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

For more information, see:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com

For a complete overview of the conference agenda, see:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/sanfrancisco/2010/agenda_overview.php

Be sure to register by September 10th for the Early Bird rate (save $200):
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/register.php

Save more with this posting’s promotional offer:  Take an additional $150 off the Early Bird – a total savings of $350 – or the regular registration fee with this registration discount code: AOH150

What is predictive analytics?  See the Predictive Analytics Guide:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/predictive_analytics.php

If you’d like our informative event updates, sign up at:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/notifications.php

To sign up for the PAW group on LinkedIn, see:
www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1005097

For inquiries e-mail registration@predictiveanalyticsworld.com or call (717) 798-3495.

Certifications in Analytics and Business Intelligence

I sometimes get a chat message on Twitter/ Facebook asking for help on some specific data issue. More often than not it is something like – How do I get started in BI/BA /Data stuff. So here is a list of certifications which I think are quite nice as beginning points or even CV multipliers.

[tweetmeme=”Decisionstats”]

1) Google’s Certifications

http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwords/professionals/

2) SAS Certifications

Quite well established and easily one of the best structured certification programs in the industry.

http://support.sas.com/certify/index.html

3) SPSS

The SPSS certification began last year and it helps provide a valuable skill set for both your practice as well as your resume. Also useful to have a second skill set apart from SAS in terms of statistical software.

http://www.spss.com/certification/

At this point I would like you to pause and think if the above certifications are useful or cost  effective for you as they are broadly general qualifications in statistical platforms as well as in applying them for the web analytics ( a key area for business analytics).

For more specialized certifications here are some more-

1) Microsoft SQL Server

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-sql-server.aspx

2) TDWI Certification

http://tdwi.org/pages/certification/index.aspx

3) IBM

Not sure how updated these are so caveat emptor!

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245747.html

If you are knowledgeable about IBM’s Business Intelligence solutions and the fundamental concepts of DB2 Universal Database, and you are capable of performing the intermediate and advanced skills required to design, develop, and support Business Intelligence applications

Also IBM Cognos Certifications

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/education/cognos-cert.html

4) MicroStrategy

http://www.microstrategy.com/education/Certification/

5) Oracle

Included the all new Sun Certifications as well.

http://certification.oracle.com/

and http://blogs.oracle.com/certification/

6) SAP Certifications

http://www.sap.com/services/education/certification/index.epx

7) Cloudera’s Hadoop Certification

http://www.cloudera.com/developers/learn-hadoop/hadoop-certification/

These are some Business Intelligence and Business Analytics related certifications that I assembled in a list. Many other programs were either too software development specific or did not have a certification for general usage (like many R trainings or company tool specific trainings). Please feel free to add in any suggestions.

Data Mining through the Android

Here is something interesting (I probably have to ask someone or wait for Android to come to India to do this personally0.

It uses the Android App Development ( which is quite easy if you have a Linux) and basically runs R from the cloud using a GUI Rattle. Fire away the data while watching a movie or just on the go !

See this-

http://analyticdroid.togaware.com/

Question- How useful do you think it will be to do this?  Would you like to run R on your mobile?