When it comes to business analytics companies, IBM can’t seem to keep its checkbook closed. In its latest analytics purchase, Big Blue has snapped up Redwood City, Calif.-based software firm Star Analytics. Details about the deal’s value are being kept under…
SAS is opening the Big Data visualization floodgates with an update to SAS Visual Analytics. The company is making the case for Big Data in departmental, multi-user environments by announcing that its in-memory analytics visualization software now supports a wider…
There’s big money to be made in Big Data, according to a forecast from Albany, NY-based Transparency Market Research. The firm predicts that by 2018, the worldwide Big Data technology market will balloon to $48.3 billion from a comparatively modest $6.3…
EMC is throwing down the analytics gauntlet and claiming a Big Data first in the process. The data storage giant unveiled its new Greenplum Data Computing Appliance (DCA) Unified Analytics Platform Edition, a Big Data analytics solution that brings Greenplum’s…
IBM today pulled back the curtain on a new version of its Connections software that will make even bigger use of social networks and the cloud to boost collaboration and help companies integrate Big Data into their business processes. When…
Businesses rely significantly on social media to support sales, marketing and customer support goals. An organization’s social channels allow it to reach customers instantly, understand customer needs, gauge brand sentiment, see how it compares competitively and much more. Many business…
Marketers are prepared to increase their spending on Big Data analytics this year, according to a study from Infogroup Targeting Services and Yesmail Interactive, two companies that operate under the Infogroup umbrella. Among those surveyed, 68 percent of the 700…
Business software providers like IBM, SAP and Oracle are pouring substantial resources, not to mention their fair share of money, into growing their Big Data analytics platforms for sales and marketing shops. But a new study from Neolane, a marketing software…
Omni-channel engagement is the latest battleground for retailers and the tech titans that they depend on for their sales software. Microsoft unveiled the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics for Retail at NRF 2013, the National Retail Federation’s annual conference and…
IBM took the wraps off new retailing software and solutions offerings under its Smarter Commerce banner during NRF 2013, the National Retail Federation’s annual conference and tradeshow, this week in New York City. The products arrive in the wake of changing…
Alteryx, a business analytics software maker, is bullish on its Big Data for the masses approach to analytics. And more companies are coming around to its way of thinking, the company announced. Last fall, Alteryx debuted Strategic Analytics 8.0, which included…
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software specialist Epicor today announced a new version of its CRM product aimed at retailers during NRF 2013, the National Retail Federation’s tradeshow taking place this week in New York City. The product, dubbed…
SAP is not slowing down when it comes to finding new markets for its HANA in-memory analytics platform. The business software maker unveiled Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA this week, a new offering that bridges real-time transactions and analytics…
Enterprise performance management (EPM) is emerging as an important new front in the cloud business app wars. Host Analytics, a Redwood City, Calif.-based software maker, has secured $17 million in a Series D round of financing to help fuel the…
Want to get schooled in Big Data? IT systems and services provider Hewlett-Packard (HP) today announced a new certification program to help get IT professionals up to speed on the company’s Vertica Analytics Platform. Offered via HP’s ExpertOne IT certification program,…
Zoho today launched new updates to its CRM suite aimed at helping sales and marketing professionals collaborate better, prioritize their email communications and leverage opportunities on the go with the addition of location awareness to their travels. The company’s just-released Document…
Sales and marketing software provider Infusionsoft announced today that it had completed a round of financing worth $54 million amid a period of rapid growth for the company. Goldman Sachs led the funding round, with backing from Arthur Ventures. Infusionsoft has…
OpenERP, a Belgium-based maker of open source ERP software, capped off the year by announcing a new release and pricing details. OpenERP 7.0 debuted just ahead of the holidays with new features aimed at getting complete newcomers up and running…
The following is a “virtual case study” in which Wayne Kernochan takes an existing use case and imagines what would happen if the company extended its use of data virtualization to analytics involving Web-sensor and social-media data. The intent is…
Oracle today announced that it is acquiring Eloqua, a cloud-based marketing automation and revenue performance management software company, in a deal valued at $871 million or $23.50 per share. Thomas Kurian, executive vice president of Oracle Development, said that Eloqua’s technology…
San Francisco-based Splunk is taking a page out of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s playbook in order to build developer interest in its real-time Big Data intelligence platform. Ballmer once famously chanted, “Developers, developers, developers…” By releasing new software development kits (SDKs) today…
Oracle today unveiled Big Data Appliance X3-2, a combined server hardware and software offering that the company is pitching to businesses as a cost-effective and simplified alternative to piecing together their own Big Data processing platforms. On the hardware front,…
Oracle announced that it is acquiring DataRaker, a firm that specializes in cloud-based analytics for energy companies and water utilities. The financial terms of the transaction are being kept under wraps by the companies. One thing is clear; Oracle had its…
A new forecast from Deltek indicates that Big Data software and IT systems vendors will find a big customer in the U.S. federal government. Deltek, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) and IT solutions company that serves government contractors, expects federal spending on…
San Francisco-based Birst, a maker of business analytics software, announced a new version of its analytics platform for sales organizations today. As is quickly becoming all the rage in the realm of business analytics, Birst is aiming to get companies to…
Seattle-based IDInteract today launched Demand Exchange, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product for sales and marketing organizations. IDInteract leverages Big Data analytics to pluck demand signals from a sea of social, mobile and customer relationship management (CRM) data sources and deliver real-time,…
Coveo, a Quebec City-based enterprise search and Big Data specialist, announced today that it had raised $18 million. The funds will help it keep pace with brisk demand for its technology, the company claims. Tandem Expansion Fund led the round,…
Business software maker Sage today announced the launch of Sage SalesLogix 8, the latest edition of the company’s on-premise and cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Dan Wilzoch, Sage CRM Solutions senior vice president and general manager, says SalesLogix 8 streamlines…
Analytics startups are starting to attract the attention of venture capitalists, potentially hastening the consumerization of Big Data. ClearStory, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that seeks to bring average business users into the Big Data analytics fold, announced today that…
IBM’s bid for Kenexa is officially a done deal. Big Blue today announced that it had closed on its acquisition of the cloud-based human capital management (HCM) specialist. The IT giant announced this summer that it was buying Kenexa for $1.3…
Anti-fraud is emerging as a potentially lucrative front in Big Data analytics. Business software maker SAS hopes to capitalize on the growing demand for anti-fraud and security analytics with an expansion of its Security Intelligence initiative, an enterprise analytics solutions…
Zurmo’s developers keep on piling on the features. After adding gamification to the open source customer relationship management (CRM) platform earlier this year, the Zurmo team has been adding new components like data cleaning tools, saved search and social feeds options. For…
SAP forges ahead with its predictive analytics strategy with this week’s public launch of new software aimed at helping businesses spot trends from Big Data sources that may benefit the bottom line. The product, called SAP Predictive Analysis, works on…
Yellowfin today previewed new features in the upcoming 6.2 version of its namesake business intelligence software. Having already established a footing in the mobile realm, this time the company plans to boost adoption of its BI platform by integrating social enterprise capabilities.…
New York City-based SumAll has raised $6 million to grow its cloud-based data analytics platform. The round of funding was led by Battery Ventures and backed by Wellington Partners. To date, the firm has raised $7.5 million. SumAll specializes in Web-based data…
Socialbakers, a social analytics firm, announced today that it had closed on a round of funding worth $6 million. Index Ventures led the round with backing from Earlybird Venture Capital, a first-round investor. The startup, which specializes in social media…
Social CRM provider Nimble this week introduced an API called Contact that will allow third-party software companies to integrate their solutions with Nimble’s contact management platform. “The API represents a major milestone in achieving our mission of helping small teams…
Betting that Windows 8 will make a splash in the enterprise mobility market, SAP today announced six new business apps for the touch-enabled OS during the SAPPHIRE NOW + SAP TechEd conference in Madrid. Windows 8 has a long way…
There’s a productivity dead zone somewhere between the time a salesperson last checks Salesforce and the moment she first shakes hands with a potential client. In some cases, this disconnect between CRM tools, other applications and real world unpredictability can…
Moxie Software, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based customer service software specialist, today announced a partnership with Microsoft that brings its Spaces suite of customer relationship management (CRM) tools to Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM platform. Moxie Space is a collection of customer communications and…
Capitalizing on the wave of new product releases that have swept over the company, Microsoft announced today that its Dynamics CRM suite is getting some big updates before the end of the year. The service update encompasses a wide range…
Supply chain software makers JDA Software and RedPrairie announced today that they are merging in a deal valued at an estimated $1.9 billion. RedPrairie is offering $45 per share of JDA. The price represents a 33 percent premium above JDA’s stock price on Oct.…
Azure for Big Data workloads? Hortonworks has again teamed with Microsoft to extend Hadoop support to the latter’s Azure cloud platform and Windows Server ecosystem. This week they unveiled the fruits of that collaboration with previews of their new offerings,…
Hadoop support is quickly emerging as a prerequisite for predictive analytics software makers. San Mateo, Calif.-based Alpine Data Labs is the latest firm to announce Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) support, enabling the company’s newly-released Alpine 2.8 software to bring…
Buoyed by the popularity of HANA on Amazon Web Services (AWS) among developers, SAP has launched HANA One, a business analytics engine hosted on Amazon’s popular cloud infrastructure. HANA One is among the first of several offerings to fly under the HANA…
HP today took the wraps off a new services slate aimed at helping companies leverage the business-boosting potential of Big Data analytics. Dubbed HP Business Analytics Services, the offering blends HP’s server and storage systems solutions with the expertise of analytics…
SAS is leaving nothing to chance when it comes to in-memory Big Data analytics, according to Jim Davis, the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer. “SAS has ramped up R&D on our high-performance analytics family,” says Davis in…
Alteryx, a maker of business analytics software, today revealed another part of its strategy to “humanize” business intelligence. The company announced Alteryx Strategic Analytics 8.0, with a cloud component called Analytics Gallery that the company claims “consumerizes Big Data analytics in…
SAP today unveiled Precision Retailing, a cloud-based service powered by the company’s HANA in-memory analytics platform, which allows retailers to deliver suggestions and personalized offers to customers in real-time on websites, mobile devices and at in-store kiosks. The aim, says SAP…
HootSuite, a company best known for helping customers manage their social media accounts, today announced its new Conversations tool, a module aimed at fostering internal collaboration and getting everyone on board — and presumably on message — when engaging with…