Tag: Business

Which software do we buy? -It depends

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Often I am asked by clients, friends and industry colleagues on the suitability or unsuitability of particular software for analytical needs.  My answer is mostly-

It depends on-

1) Cost of Type 1 error in purchase decision versus Type 2 error in Purchase Decision. (forgive me if I mix up Type 1 with Type 2 error- I do have some weird childhood learning disabilities which crop up now and then)

Here I define Type 1 error as paying more for a software when there were equivalent functionalities available at lower price, or buying components you do need , like SPSS Trends (when only SPSS Base is required) or SAS ETS, when only SAS/Stat would do.

The first kind is of course due to the presence of free tools with GUI like R, R Commander and Deducer (Rattle does have a 500$ commercial version).

The emergence of software vendors like WPS (for SAS language aficionados) which offer similar functionality as Base SAS, as well as the increasing convergence of business analytics (read predictive analytics), business intelligence (read reporting) has led to somewhat brand clutter in which all softwares promise to do everything at all different prices- though they all have specific strengths and weakness. To add to this, there are comparatively fewer business analytics independent analysts than say independent business intelligence analysts.

2) Type 2 Error- In this case the opportunity cost of delayed projects, business models , or lower accuracy – consequences of buying a lower priced software which had lesser functionality than you required.

To compound the magnitude of error 2, you are probably in some kind of vendor lock-in, your software budget is over because of buying too much or inappropriate software and hardware, and still you could do with some added help in business analytics. The fear of making a business critical error is a substantial reason why open source software have to work harder at proving them competent. This is because writing great software is not enough, we need great marketing to sell it, and great customer support to sustain it.

As Business Decisions are decisions made in the constraints of time, information and money- I will try to create a software purchase matrix based on my knowledge of known softwares (and unknown strengths and weakness), pricing (versus budgets), and ranges of data handling. I will add in basically an optimum approach based on known constraints, and add in flexibility for unknown operational constraints.

I will restrain this matrix to analytics software, though you could certainly extend it to other classes of enterprise software including big data databases, infrastructure and computing.

Noted Assumptions- 1) I am vendor neutral and do not suffer from subjective bias or affection for particular software (based on conferences, books, relationships,consulting etc)

2) All software have bugs so all need customer support.

3) All software have particular advantages , strengths and weakness in terms of functionality.

4) Cost includes total cost of ownership and opportunity cost of business analytics enabled decision.

5) All software marketing people will praise their own software- sometimes over-selling and mis-selling product bundles.

Software compared are SPSS, KXEN, R,SAS, WPS, Revolution R, SQL Server,  and various flavors and sub components within this. Optimized approach will include parallel programming, cloud computing, hardware costs, and dependent software costs.

To be continued-

 

 

 

 

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Libre Office

Some ambiguity about Libre Office and why it needed to change from Open Office- just when Open Office seemed so threatening on the desktop

FROM- http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq/

Q: So is this a breakaway project?

A: Not at all. The Document Foundation will continue to be focused on developing, supporting, and promoting the same software, and it’s very much business as usual. We are simply moving to a new and more appropriate organisational model for the next decade – a logical development from Sun’s inspirational launch a decade ago.

Q: Why are you calling yourselves “The Document Foundation”?

A: For ten years we have used the same name – “OpenOffice.org” – for both the Community and the software. We’ve decided it removes ambiguity to have a different name for the two, so the Community is now “The Document Foundation”, and the software “LibreOffice”. Note: there are other examples of this usage in the free software community – e.g. the Mozilla Foundation with the Firefox browser.

Q: Does this mean you intend to develop other pieces of software?

A: We would like to have that possibility open to us in the future…

Q: And why are you calling the software “LibreOffice” instead of “OpenOffice.org”?

A: The OpenOffice.org trademark is owned by Oracle Corporation. Our hope is that Oracle will donate this to the Foundation, along with the other assets it holds in trust for the Community, in due course, once legal etc issues are resolved. However, we need to continue work in the meantime – hence “LibreOffice” (“free office”).

Q: Why are you building a new web infrastructure?

A: Since Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems, the Community has been under “notice to quit” from our previous Collabnet infrastructure. With today’s announcement of a Foundation, we now have an entity which can own our emerging new infrastructure.

Q: What does this announcement mean to other derivatives of OpenOffice.org?

A: We want The Document Foundation to be open to code contributions from as many people as possible. We are delighted to announce that the enhancements produced by the Go-OOo team will be merged into LibreOffice, effective immediately. We hope that others will follow suit.

Q: What difference will this make to the commercial products produced by Oracle Corporation, IBM, Novell, Red Flag, etc?

A: The Document Foundation cannot answer for other bodies. However, there is nothing in the licence arrangements to stop companies continuing to release commercial derivatives of LibreOffice. The new Foundation will also mean companies can contribute funds or resources without worries that they may be helping a commercial competitor.

Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to developers?

A: The Document Foundation sets out deliberately to be as developer friendly as possible. We do not demand that contributors share their copyright with us. People will gain status in our community based on peer evaluation of their contributions – not by who their employer is.

Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to users of LibreOffice?

A: LibreOffice is The Document Foundation’s reason for existence. We do not have and will not have a commercial product which receives preferential treatment. We only have one focus – delivering the best free office suite for our users – LibreOffice.

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Non Microsoft and Non Oracle vendors are indeed going to find it useful the possiblities of bundling a free Libre Office that reduces the total cost of ownership for analytics software. Right now, some of the best free advertising for Microsoft OS and Office is done by enterprise software vendors who create Windows Only Products and enable MS Office integration better than  Open Office integration. This is done citing user demand- but it is a chicken egg dilemma- as functionality leads to enhanced demand. Microsoft on the other hand is aware of this dependence and has made SQL Server and SQL Analytics (besides investing in analytics startups like Revolution Analytics) along with it’s own infrastructure -Azure Cloud Platform/EC2 instances.

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Search, Sports,Social Media,SlideShares, Scribd

An image of a house fly eye surface by using S...
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Some slideshare.net presentations I really liked.

A tutorial on SEO and SEM-

Carole Ann Matignon deals with optimization and scheduling, rules in the…….NFL!

 

 

Carole, We are waiting for the sequel on  analytics on football and the beer game.

Social Media Screw-Ups

Social Media doesnt matter at all- Social Media matters a lot- Still undecided? Take a look

Slideshare is a great VISUAL interface on sharing content. I liked Google Docs embedding as well, but Matt Mullenberg and Matt Cutts seemed to have stopped talking. Mullenberg is going like Zuckenberg, not willing to align with Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin. or maybe they are afraid of Big Brother Brin. Google loves Java and Javascript (even when they are getting sued for it)- while Matt M  hates it- bad for RIA I guess.

Scribd also is a great way to share content- and probably is small enough for. WordPress.com to allow embedding

Thats the reason why I sometimes prefer Scribd for sharing my poetry to Slideshare and Google Docs. Also I like the enhanced analytics and the much easier and evolved interface for reading. Slideshare is much more successful than Scribd because it is open to sharing with everyone- scribd tries to get you to register …;)

(* Also see MIT’s beer game at http://beergame.mit.edu/ which is ahem different from Duke’s beer games).

 

 

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SAS announcement in education initiatives

From the Research Triangle, some pleasant and positive news- http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2010/10/04/daily27.html

“As a high tech company, SAS depends on a strong educational system for its long-term success,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. “Beyond that, STEM education – developing skills for a knowledge economy – is critical to American competitiveness. Without emphasis on STEM, we sacrifice innovation and export our knowledge jobs to other countries.”

Goodnight and SAS have been active in education for years. The SAS co-founder and his wife, Ann Goodnight, launched college prep school Cary Academy in 1996, and the SAS inSchool program has developed educational software for schools since the mid-1990s. In 2008, Jim Goodnight made SAS Curriculum Pathways available free to all U.S. educators. The web-based service provides content in English, mathematics, social studies, science and Spanish.

SAS is the only Triangle-based company among the Change the Equation corporate partners, but the group includes several other companies with a significant Raleigh-Durham presence: chief among them IBM (NYSE: IBM), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), and Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO).

Read the full article at http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2010/10/04/daily27.html

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Read more: SAS joins IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Cisco Systems in Obama education effort – Triangle Business Journal

 

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BI Software

Here is the brand new release from Jaspersoft at a groovy price of 9000$. Somebody stop these guys!

It’s a great company to watch for buyouts as well- given their expertise in REPORTING and clientele- especially for anyone looking to im prove thier standing in both open source world and reporting software branding.

From AOL owned Arrogantion’s site http://www.crunchbase.com/company/jaspersoft

 

Total $24.5M
Series D, 8/07 1
Scale Venture Partners
SAP Ventures
Doll Capital Management
Partech International
Morgenthaler Ventures		 $12M
Unattributed, 12/08 2
Adams Street Partners
Red Hat
Morgenthaler Ventures
Doll Capital Management
Partech International

 

 

The news-

Announcing JasperReports Server Professional

More Resources

Webinar: Introducing JasperReports Server Professional

Thursday October 14

In this live webinar, learn how a new solution from Jaspersoft combines the world’s favorite reporting server with powerful, mature report server functionality—for about 80% less.

  • Date: Thu, Oct 14
  • Time: 10:00 AM PDT
  • Duration: 60 minutes

The World’s Most Powerful and Affordable Reporting Server

Limited Time Introductory Offer: Starting from $9,000 (restrictions apply)

JasperReports Server is the recommended product for organizations requiring an affordable reporting solution for interactive, operational, and production-based reporting. Deployed as a standalone reporting server or integrated inside another application, JasperReports Server is a flexible, powerful, interactive reporting environment for small or large enterprises.

Powered by the world’s most popular reporting tools in JasperReports and iReport, developers and users can take advantage of more interactivity, security, and scheduling of their reports.

Key Benefits:

  • Affordable: Unlimited reports for unlimited users starting at $9,000
  • Powerful: Report scheduling and distribution to 1,000s of users on a single server
  • Flexible: Web service architecture simplifies application integration
  • Secure: Centralized repository authenticates report access
  • Interactive: Easy to interact, self-serve parameterized-based reports
  • Visual appeal: Flash-based charts and maps engage users and enhance applications
  • Open: Access to any data source including relational, XML, Hibernate, EJB, POJO, and custom

or just watch the 5 min video-

 

Speaking of videos -here is a great video on BI from good ol Tennessee-a great 27 min tutorial on BI for newbies

 

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Microsoft Online Games

No, this is not about the X Box kind of games. It is about Microsoft ‘s tactical shift in the online space from going it alone, and building stuff itself, –to partnering, and sometimes investing and exiting business.

In Blogs- It recently announced a migration of MS Live Spaces to WordPress.com – It gives Automattic 30 million more users- no small change consider there were 26 million existing WP users.

Microsoft Messenger, which is the oldest online app in the suite, now provides instant messaging services to about 350 million users, and from now on Windows Live Writer works specifically with the WordPress.com blog service by default. Hopefully Skype, and Google Voice will show MS the way to monitize that business app yet.

Google buying blogger-blogspot seems to have done little, but given Biz Stone room to create another content disruption-Twitter.

With the round of lawsuits by proxy, in Android -Motorola, or for acquisitions – MS is just doing what Marc Anderseen (who’s apparently a better VC than Paul Allen was), Sun and co did to it in the nineties.

Google seems to be regretting putting a spade in the Yahoo acquisition- that would have tied up a big chunk of Idle MS cash- leaving it little room for niche investments (like the 250 mill that helped Facebook ramp up in time).

The real surprise here could be Apple- it has shown little interest in cloud computing- and it seems to be testing the waters with Ping. But Apple sure smells competition- and Android is doing to Iphone what Windows did to the Mac in the early 1990’s.

Google lacks presence in online gaming (despite it’s own Zynga investment)- and needs to start monetizing properties like Android OS (say 10$ for every phone license ??), Google Maps (as an app for GPS) and Google Voice. Indeed it may be time for the big G to start thinking of spinning off atleast some products- earning better returns, while retaining control (dual stock splits) and killing those anti trust lawyer fees forever.

As the Ancient Chinese said, May you live in interesting times. Fun to watch the online games people play.

 

 

IBM Business Analytics Forum

IBM Cognos is about to be launced next month, and Cognos Forum and SPSS Directions have merged to form Business Analytics Forum.

Cognos and SPSS bundled together is a formidable software package for business analysts.

See http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/2010-conference/business-analytics/