husband, father of 5, basketball addict; been developing & marketing software 30 years: also tweeting as @DMenningerISG
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Articles by David Menninger
Werneck: Weihnachtsfeier beim TSV beschließt Jubiläumsjahr
Am dritten Adventswochenende hat der TSV Werneck sein 125-jähriges Jubiläumsjahr mit einer feierlichen und stimmungsvollen Weihnachtsfeier abgeschlossen. Zahlreiche Mitglieder, Freunde und Familienangehörige füllten die festlich geschmückte Aula der Mittelschule Werneck und sorgten für eine warme, gemeinschaftliche Atmosphäre, die den besonderen Anlass würdig unterstrich. Der Vorstand blickte in seiner Ansprache auf ein ereignisreiches Jahr zurück, das im Zeichen des Vereinsjubiläums stand.
Oracle Wants to Be the Database for AI
Founded as Software Development Laboratories in 1977, Oracle is a behemoth in the software industry, generating more than $50 billion in revenue in its fiscal year 2024. Originally focused solely on the relational database market, the software provider operated as Relational Systems, Inc. for several years before adopting the name Oracle in 1982.
Databricks Scores Massive Funding Round, Continues to Expand Its Offerings
Ventana Research’s Analyst Perspectives are fact-based analysis and guidance on business, industry and technology vendor trends. Each Analyst Perspective presents the view of the analyst who is an established subject matter expert on new developments, business and technology trends, findings from our research, or best practice insights.
Detecting and Preventing Bias: A Crucial Element of AI Governance
In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) governance has emerged as a critical ingredient for successful AI deployments. It helps build trust in the results of AI models, it helps ensure compliance with regulations and it is necessary to meet internal governance requirements. Effective AI governance must encompass various dimensions, including data privacy, model drift, hallucinations, toxicity and perhaps most importantly, bias.
Avoiding Toxicity in Generative AI
As I’ve written recently, artificial intelligence governance is a concern for many enterprises. In our recent ISG Market Lens study on generative AI, 39% of participants cited data privacy and security among the biggest inhibitors to adopting AI. Nearly a third (32%) identified performance and quality (e.g., erroneous results), and an equal amount (32%) mentioned legal risk. The AI market has made a tectonic shift in the past year and a half, embracing GenAI.
Market Observations on AI Governance
Having just completed our AI Platforms Buyers Guide assessment of 25 different software providers, I was surprised to see how few provided robust AI governance capabilities. As I’ve written previously, data governance has changed dramatically over the last decade, with nearly twice as many enterprises (71% v. 38%) implementing data governance policies during that time.
The Buyers Guides for AI Platforms Classifies and Rates Software Providers
<< Back to Blog Index I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The AI Platforms: Ventana Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research.
Google Expands AI Capabilities at Cloud Next ’24
The artificial intelligence (AI) market is exploding with activity, which is part of the reason we recently announced that we have dedicated an entire practice at Ventana Research to the topic. Large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (GenAI) have taken the AI world by storm. In fact, we assert that through 2026, one-half of all AI investments will be based on generative rather than predictive AI.
Salesforce Wants Everyone to be an Einstein with AI
I recently attended the Salesforce Trailblazer DX event to learn more about Salesforce’s artificial intelligence products and strategy. Fueled by generative AI, awareness and investment in AI seems to be exploding. ISG research shows that enterprises plan to nearly triple the portion of budgets allocated to AI over the next two years.
AI Innovations in Data and Analytics at SAP
Data and analytics have become increasingly important to all aspects of business. The modern data and analytics stack includes many components, which creates challenges for enterprises and software providers alike. As my colleague Matt Aslett points out, a better term might be modern data and analytics smorgasbord. There are arguments for and against using an assortment of tools versus a consolidated platform. For example, purchasing, integrating and deploying a variety of tools can be complex.
Refocus on AI, Skill-Building for the Greatest Operational Impact
In the technology industry, 2023 will be remembered as the year of generative artificial intelligence. Yes, the world was made aware of GenAI when ChatGPT was publicly launched in November of 2022, but few knew the impact it would have at that point in time.
As Interest in AI Scales, So Does Domino Data Lab
Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) is exploding driven in large part by the widespread interest in generative AI. ISG’s AI Buyer Behavior Survey reported that more than 6 in 10 participants have at least one AI application in production. However, despite the ease with which individuals can use AI as a result of natural language processing, creating and managing AI models is still a challenge. First, there is a shortage of skills.
Look Out: Computer Vision in AI is Coming Into Sight
Unstructured data has been a significant factor in data lakes and analytics for some time. Twelve years ago, nearly a third of enterprises were working with large amounts of unstructured data. As I’ve pointed out previously, unstructured data is really a misnomer. The data is structured; it's just not structured into rows and columns that fit neatly into a relational table like much of the other information enterprises process.
Generative AI Makes Natural Language Analytics a Reality
We’ve been saying for years that natural language processing (NLP) and natural language analytics would greatly expand access to analytics. However, prior to the explosion of generative AI (GenAI), software providers had struggled to bring robust natural language capabilities to market. It required considerable manual effort. Many analytics providers had introduced natural language capabilities, but they didn’t really resonate with enterprise requirements. They required significant effort to set up.
2024 Market Agenda for Artificial Intelligence: Improving Productivity and Experiences
Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 Market Agenda for Artificial Intelligence, continuing the guidance we have offered for two decades to help enterprises derive optimal value from technology and improve business outcomes. The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning within enterprises is transforming analytics.
Alteryx Uses Generative AI to Enhance Analytic Operations
Alteryx was founded in 1997 and initially focused on analyzing demographic and geographically organized data. In 2006, the company released its eponymous product that established its direction for what the product is today. In 2017, it went public in an IPO on the NYSE. At the time of the IPO, Alteryx was focusing much of its marketing efforts on the data preparation market, particularly to support Tableau. Throughout this time though, Alteryx offered much more than data preparation.
Stream and Event Processing Require Real-Time Analytics
In my past perspectives, I’ve written about the evolution from data at rest to data in motion and the fact that you can’t rely on dashboards for real-time analytics. Organizations are becoming more and more event-driven and operating based on streaming data. As well, analytics are becoming more and more intertwined with operations.
The Buyers Guide for Mobile Analytics Classifies and Rates Vendors
I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research 2023 Mobile Analytics Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research.
Mobile Analytics Buyers Guide: Market Observations
The 2023 Ventana Research Buyers Guide for Mobile Analytics research enables me to provide observations about how the market has advanced. The processes and technology of the mobile analytics software industry play an instrumental role in enabling an organization’s business units and IT to optimally utilize data in both tactical and strategic ways.
Collaborative Analytics Buyers Guide: Market Observations
The 2023 Ventana Research Buyers Guide for Collaborative Analytics research enables me to provide observations about how the market has advanced. Analytics almost universally involves collaboration among a team of individuals. Interpreting the results of the analyses, choosing a course of action and tracking the implementation of those actions spans multiple roles and departments within an organization.
The Buyers Guide for Embedded Analytics Classifies and Rates Vendors
I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research 2023 Embedded Analytics Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research.
Embedded Analytics Buyers Guide: Market Observations
The 2023 Ventana Research Buyers Guide for Embedded Analytics research enables me to provide observations about how the market has advanced. The processes and technology of the analytics and data software industry play an instrumental role in enabling an organization’s business units and IT to optimally utilize data in both tactical and strategic ways.
The Buyers Guide for Augmented Analytics Classifies and Rates Vendors
I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research 2023 Augmented Analytics Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research.
Augmented Analytics Buyers Guide 2023: Market Observations
The 2023 Ventana Research Buyers Guide for Augmented Analytics research enables me to provide observations about how the market has advanced. For decades, organizations have been improving and expanding the way they use analytics and data software, commonly referred to as business intelligence (BI), to improve their operations. Vendors have made dramatic improvements to BI products with highly interactive visualizations and the ability to process and display very large volumes of data quickly.
The Buyers Guide for Analytics and Data Classifies and Rates Vendors
I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research 2023 Analytics and Data Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research.
Analytics and Data Buyers Guide 2023: Market Observations
The 2023 Ventana Research Buyers Guide for Analytics and Data research enables me to provide observations about how the market has advanced. The processes and technology of the analytics and data software industry continue to play an instrumental role in enabling an organization’s business units and IT to optimally utilize data in both tactical and strategic ways.
Altair Accelerates Data Analytics with RapidMiner
Organizations are continuously combining data from diverse and siloed sources for analytical, artificial intelligence and machine learning projects. As the volume of data grows, it becomes challenging for organizations to manage and keep current to extract valuable insights in a timely manner. Businesses also face challenges such as a lack of required skills and a shortage of data science expertise.
Reversing the ETL Process Improves Data Operations
At one point, analytics and business intelligence were considered non-mission critical activities. One of the primary concerns in designing analytics systems was to ensure they didn’t interfere with or draw computing resources away from operational systems. But today, analytical systems are integral to many aspects of operations. More than 9 in 10 participants in our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research reported analytics had improved activities and processes.
Combining Scenario Evaluation with BI Delivers Better Decisions
If I had a magic wand, I would want to add scenario evaluation to all business intelligence tools on the market. I have previously written about the need to make intelligent decisions with decision intelligence. The data and analytics markets have evolved so that organizations have far greater capabilities to utilize data in decision-making processes. While there is some convergence around the concept of decision intelligence, there are still several “islands” of decision-making.
GoodData’s Embedded Analytics Democratizes Data-Driven Decisions
The current market landscape of data and analytics is undergoing rapid evolution, presenting organizations with a wide array of challenges and opportunities. As data sources and warehouses steadily migrate to the cloud, a significant number of organizations still depend on conventional tools. This reliance on legacy systems hinders the seamless accessibility and adoption of analytics and business intelligence within business processes.
MicroStrategy World Showcases the Power of ONE Platform
MicroStrategy is a long-standing business intelligence and analytics vendor that operates worldwide. Founded in 1989, this publicly traded company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue recently held its first in-person conference since prior to the pandemic. Similar to previous in-person events, the event was well attended by about 2,000 attendees and exhibitors. The theme, “MicroStrategy ONE,” is a way to explain the breadth of capabilities the company offers.
Large Language Models Take AI World By Storm
Artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved from a highly specialized niche technology to a worldwide phenomenon. Nearly 9 in 10 organizations use or plan to adopt AI technology. Several factors have contributed to this evolution. First, the amount of data they can collect and store has increased dramatically while the cost of analyzing these large amounts of data has decreased dramatically. Data-driven organizations need to process data in real time which requires AI.
Large Language Models Take AI World By Storm
Artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved from a highly specialized niche technology to a worldwide phenomenon. Nearly 9 in 10 organizations use or plan to adopt AI technology. Several factors have contributed to this evolution. First, the amount of data they can collect and store has increased dramatically while the cost of analyzing these large amounts of data has decreased dramatically. Data-driven organizations need to process data in real time which requires AI.
Make Better Decisions with Collaborative Analytics
In my perspective on decision intelligence, I lamented the fact that business intelligence technologies have left the rest of the exercise to the reader for too long. Making a decision is a process that involves many steps and many people. Decision-making is so complicated and divorced from day-to-day business processes that organizations have had to create entirely separate teams to focus on the analytics and data to support it.
Sigma Computing Makes Cloud Analytics More Accessible
Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the potential value that can be gained by processing big data. As data sources grow, it becomes important to have tools and methods to effectively process, analyze and visualize this information from disparate systems and warehouses. Our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows that the majority of the workforce in an organization is not using analytics.
Tellius Enables Decision Intelligence
Organizations are continuously searching for new business opportunities hidden in their data. They are using various technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to uncover granular insights that can support decision-making. Existing tools and dashboards are effective for observing standard metrics; however, they do not address follow-up questions, such as why things are happening or how those events impact performance.
Hitachi Vantara DataOps Improves Analytics and Decision-Making
Now more than ever, effective data management is crucial to enable decision-makers to better assess information and take calculated actions. It is also important to keep up with the latest trends and technologies to derive higher value from data and analytics and maintain a competitive edge in the market. However, every organization faces challenges with data management and analytics.
Wiiisdom Automates Analytics Operations for Trusted Analyses
Ventana Research’s Analyst Perspectives are fact-based analysis and guidance on business, industry and technology vendor trends. Each Analyst Perspective presents the view of the analyst who is an established subject matter expert on new developments, business and technology trends, findings from our research, or best practice insights.
Use Observability for Better Digital Processes
For years various types of systems have produced log files to help with monitoring, debugging and performance management. Often, this information was used in forensic analyses of why interruptions in service or other problems occurred. In many cases, log files are still used this way. But systems have grown more complicated, and many more devices are instrumented. Systems have been decomposed into much finer-grained, interdependent services.
Advanced Analytics Enable More Informed Decision-Making
I’ve previously written about the analytics continuum, which spans a range of capabilities including reporting, visualization, planning, real-time processes, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning. I’ve also written about the analysis that goes into making intelligent decisions with decision intelligence. In this perspective, I’d like to focus on one end of the analytics continuum, which I’ll label advanced analytics.
Advanced Analytics Enable More Informed Decision-Making
I’ve previously written about the analytics continuum, which spans a range of capabilities including reporting, visualization, planning, real-time processes, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning. I’ve also written about the analysis that goes into making intelligent decisions with decision intelligence. In this perspective, I’d like to focus on one end of the analytics continuum, which I’ll label advanced analytics.
Prevedere Provides Predictive Insights with Analytics and Planning
Markets have been more volatile than ever. It creates a need for decision makers to utilize technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to better understand the external factors that impact their business. By identifying these factors, organizations can better plan for changing market environments and seize market opportunities. However, manual modeling is a time-consuming process and results in a limited number of models and tests.
The 2023 Market Agenda for Analytics: Empowering Workforces to Engage
Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 Market Agenda for Analytics, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from technology investments to improve business outcomes. It has been exciting to follow innovations in the analytics market, but for businesses, capitalizing on these innovations can be challenging.
2023 Digital Technology Market Agenda: Innovation for Digital Agility
I’m proud to share Ventana Research’s 2023 Market Agenda for Digital Technology. Our focus in this agenda is to deliver expertise to help organizations prioritize technology investments that improve customer, partner and workforce experiences while also increasing organizational effectiveness and agility. Digital technology is a business necessity, as demonstrated throughout the pandemic.
Personalize Experiences to Improve Engagement and Outcomes
Consumer and mobile applications have influenced our expectations. Nearly all of us carry a smartphone, and we interact with a variety of applications on our devices. Those applications have forever influenced what we expect from computing systems. When I search the web for a gas station, I’m not searching for all gas stations. I’m searching for those stations that are near me. Not just near my regular location, but near my current location.
Make Intelligent Decisions with Decision Intelligence
For far too long, business intelligence technologies have left the rest of the exercise to the reader. Many of these tools do an excellent job providing information in an interactive way that lets organizations dive into the data and learn a lot about what has happened across all aspects of the business. More recently, many of these tools have added augmented intelligence capabilities that help explain why things happened.
Make Intelligent Decisions with Decision Intelligence
For far too long, business intelligence technologies have left the rest of the exercise to the reader. Many of these tools do an excellent job providing information in an interactive way that lets organizations dive into the data and learn a lot about what has happened across all aspects of the business. More recently, many of these tools have added augmented intelligence capabilities that help explain why things happened.
Master Metrics with Kyligence Zen
Analytics processes are all about how organizations use data to create metrics that help manage and improve operations. Yet, the discipline applied to analytics processes seems to be lacking compared to data processes. I’ve pointed out that the weak link in data governance is often analytics. Organizations can also do a better job tying AnalyticOps to DataOps and do more to define and manage metrics.
Oracle Links Analytics and Business Intelligence in the Cloud
Organizations conduct data analysis in many ways. The process can include multiple spreadsheets, applications, desktop tools, disparate data systems, data warehouses and analytics solutions. This creates difficulties for management to provide and maintain updated information across multiple departments. Our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows that organizations face a variety of challenges with analytics and business intelligence.
Cloud Computing Realities Part 4 - Security and Governance
In previous perspectives in this series, I’ve discussed some of the realities of cloud computing including costs, hybrid and multi-cloud configurations and business continuity. This perspective examines the realities of security and regulatory concerns associated with cloud computing. These issues are often cited by our research participants as reasons they are not embracing the cloud. To be fair, the majority of our research participants are embracing the cloud.
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