
Machine Learning Reveals Employees’ Unrealized Skills
As human-like machines begin to perform more advanced tasks, we fear that they will replace us, take our jobs even. But the truth is, machines are making our lives easier and allowing us to focus more on what humans do best, such as making subjective decisions and using our emotional intelligence. Robots and machines, in effect, […]

Gmail’s Most Ridiculous, Idiotic, Intrusive, Useless Feature Ever.
Google keeps on coming up with new features at a rapid pace, some making it to adulthood soon, others stuck in “labs” mode forever, some we like, other’s less so – to each their own. But I’ve never thought the day would come I would write the words utterly ridiculous, iditiotic, intrusive, with absolute certainly […]

IBM’s IOD Showcases DB2, Informix, InfoSphere. Now, About Marketing….
It was hard to decide where to look first in Las Vegas this year at IBM’s flagship information management event. Coming as it did on the heels of a massive, sprawling Oracle Open World, it was also overwhelming, but distinguished itself immediately by its focus. Whereas Oracle has smashed together hardware systems, apps, middleware, java […]

Scary Technology (#1) – Tech that should irk you
Halloween is just around the corner and there’s some scary technology out there. In this first of three posts, see how insidious some of this activity really is………

IBM Acquires Netezza – ADBMS Consolidation Heats Up
IBM’s bid to acquire Netezza makes it official; the insurgents are at the gates. A pioneering and leading ADBMS player, Netezza is in play for approximately $1.7 billion or 6 times earnings. When it entered the market in 2001, it catalyzed an economic and architectural shift with an appliance form factor at a dramatically different […]
Microsoft Plays Where’s Waldo? With BI – Good Idea
In April, I was critical of the BI messaging I heard from Microsoft – as told, it was long on benefit adjectives and short on architectural clarity. But things have changed since then, and the Combined Tech Ed/Business Intelligence Conference made that very clear. Do I see more clarity because I now know more of […]

An Oracle of Spend Classification or Just Another Spend Tool? (Part 3)
In the first two parts of this mini-series (Part 1 and Part 2) looking at Oracle’s new spend classification tool, I examined some of the basic capabilities it presents as well as how it appears to work in practice based on a relatively quick demonstr…

An Oracle of Spend Classification or Just Another Spend Tool? (Part 2)
In my first column covering Oracle’s new Spend Classification product, I touched on a number of background elements about the solution. In today’s post, I’ll continue this examination, digging into how the tool works in practice (and in the final par…

An Oracle of Spend Classification or Just Another Spend Tool? (Part 1)
Earlier in the month, I noted in a post that Oracle unveiled a new spend classification capability at Open World. In announcing the features of the solution, Oracle clearly took a few cards from Zycus, Spend Radar, Ariba, Emptoris, BravoSolution and …