Monday, December 31, 2012

Predictive analytics expected to improve weather forecasts and weather driven demand forecasting

Big data on regional weather conditions continues to grow. This historical data offers a wealth of statistical data that can be added to predictive models to help predict the weather and improve business profits.

Companies such as Planalytics have integrated a wealth of historical weather data into automated predictive analytical packages  to help companies plan for increased or reduced demand that results from weather conditions. With the  company's predictive  heat map snapshots, business can see estimates of regional-specific demand for heaters, air conditioners and other types of weather dependent products as the weather changes.

Weather influences many businesses in many different ways besides the sale of products. Bad weather can delay shipments, shut down factories and increase delivery costs. Planalytics  addresses the weather issues for all types of industries. The company has weather predictive analytics solutions for retail, insurance and manufacturing companies (just to name a few).

Planaltyics client list tells the story of just how important weather driven business analytics is to companies these days. There client list includes well known companies from almost every industrial sector. Among the company's massive list of clients are  Starbucks, Baskin Robins, Payless, Ace Hardware,  Bloomberg and DuraFlame.

Planaltyics weather solutions help these companies not only predict demand based on the weather, but also more accurately forecast sales at all their regional operations throughout the world. This means these companies can adequately address inventory stocking needs as well as regional labor needs and specific regional problems so that the effects on profits are mitigated.


Sunday, December 30, 2012

Predictive Analytics and Predictive Modeling Made Simple

Predictive Analytics and Predictive Modeling Made Simple

Predictive analysis allows companies to make decisions based on data, large amounts of data, often known as big data. This data could be keywords in tweets, weather patterns or vast amounts of consumer data. .With customer data integration software a company can completely break down the demographics of their customer base. With real time customer data integration software, changing demographic trends can be analyzed in real time and companies can change their marketing strategies accordingly.

Today though, changing your marketing strategies is also an automated real time process. When a potential customer comes to web site, their consumer data profile is read and the advertising is reconfigured to match the consumers profile.The potential buyer's profile then  is matched with the ad database. Probability rankings are generated for each type of ad based on the potential buyer's profile. Then the ad is placed on the potential buyers screen.


It doesn't stop there though. Whether or not the ad resulted in a  purchase is made is then recorded. The probability rankings are then recalculated for the ad and statistical data stored in  the predictive model. In this way the predictive model is continually improved so that optimal sales revenue is achieved.

Developing a predictive model requires one to have a database of stimulus  often ads or words. Ideally, it also requires one to have subjects, the potential buyers, to view or read those ads and words. The more subjects that are exposed to the stimulus the more data the predictive model has to work with. So over time as the number of stimulus grows and the number of subjects increases, the better the predictive model gets.

The factors that go into building a consumer predictive model are many. These can include the consumer's buying history, geographic location, occupation, interests, and time of year, just to name a few.

However, the first step in building a predictive model doesn't necessarily require any advanced analytics,  technology or big data. . Simple surveys of the customer base can be conducted and the results used to generate  the predictive model seed.




Saturday, December 29, 2012

Predictive analytics companies sales continue to rise

The predictive analytics market, considered one of the highest growth markets in the business intelligence sector, continues to gain steam. The latest news  from SAS, based in Cary, North Caroline, is that its  new SAS data mining software licenses increased 28 percent year-over-year.

This type of sales trend is expected to continue for other companies in the predictive analytics market.   One of the primary reasons is that  predictive analytics tools offer businesses and governments new ways to lower costs, generate revenue and provide longer term economic stability.

Predictive analytics is not only considered necessary for companies to excel, but also  is gaining notoriety as the only way for many  companies to remain competitive.   Jim Davis, SAS Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer emphasized that his company's analytic products give companies the competitive edge,  “Lightning-fast analytic insights provide a powerful competitive advantage. SAS Visual Analytics can evaluate numerous scenarios simultaneously, so banks can spot opportunities or detect emerging issues and respond immediately to market conditions. Retailers can personalize offers on the spot, based on structured and unstructured data from sales and social media, boosting sales.”

Why SAS is out in the lead is  an open question.  It could be because of its award winning products or its market focus.  SAS has a diverse range of analytical tools packaged in an  integrated analytics environment  for predictive and descriptive modeling, data mining, text analytics, forecasting and a number of other business intelligence taks. It also offers industry specific solutions for customer intelligence and risk management. SAS focuses on the health care, banking, insurance, retail and communications market.

Similar ales increases are  expected for the other predictive analytics vendors. The major reason is the growth of big data statistics warehoused in corporations and governments throughout the world. The automated  pooling and analysis of this data will give businesses and governments the information they need to develop products and respond to marketing, economic and geopolitical conditions in real time.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Healthcare companies moving to cloud solutions to improve patient outcomes

More and more healthcare companies are structuring and automating their approach to solving difficult medical problems. The latest companies to join the push to drive down healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes  through cloud based computing technologies are Humedica, Inc (Boston) and Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE: PFE). The two companies have entered into a multi-year strategic alliance to develop advanced healthcare capabilities based on "real world data" and advanced analytical technology.

The combination of Humedica, a cloud solution based clinical intelligence company, and Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based biopharmaceutical company, will results in a  data-driven collaborative research effort. As part of the effort, Humedica will gather and normalize de-identified healthcare data from disparate systems and Pfizer will utilize  the information to develop and commercialize medicines to prevent and treat health conditions.

Commenting on the agreement was Michael Weintraub, Humedica’s president and CEO,  “Pfizer's leadership position in global healthcare is focused on the goal of delivery of medicines at optimal effectiveness and efficiency. Humedica is pleased to be Pfizer's clinical informatics and analytics partner, applying Big Data solutions across the continuum of care.”

The importance of leading-edge analytics and real world data sets to improve the overall health of patients was underscored by Geno Germano, President and General Manager, Pfizer Specialty Care Business Unit. “The collaboration with Humedica will provide us with powerful information about healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. By combining leading-edge analytics with unique real world data sets, we believe we can identify actionable insights and potentially improve patient outcomes and overall health.”

More agreements are expected to emerge as the power of cloud based solutions and big data become better known. Healthcare and neutraceutical companies are expected to tap into real world nutrition data sets and apply cloud based analytics to determine the best diets and nutrition programs for best patient outcomes.

Cloud Business News is published by BookMarkTutoring.com. Bookmark soffers  training and tutoring services for businesses and individuals.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Adobe’s creative cloud acquisition strategy nets "million member plus" creative arts social network

Adobe Systems (Nasdaq:ADBE)  announced  that it has acquired Behance, an artistic and digital publication oriented social media network. The acquisition is part of  Adobe’s strategy to win over more clients to its Creative Cloud.  Behance with view rates over 90 million per month, 3 million hosted projects and over 1 million members, undoubtedly is one of the larger groups that have an interest in Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite. And that’s not only because members are users of Adobe’s tools, but use Adobe tools to produce the latest multimedia productions, publications and advertising.

Adobe is in a unique position to capture the creative segment of the cloud market place. And that’s because its one of the few or only clouds that has everything a business needs to create the videos, animations, graphics, ebooks,  music, and web sites in a business process managed  like environment. Sites like Behance want members to have as many reasons to come to their site as possible. Adobe’s Creative Cloud with scores of multimedia digital publishing and programming tools, creative and creative programmers have a very good reason to stay longer on Behance’s social network. Now creatives have a place to go not only to share their work, network and  collaborate, but use Adobe’s “never-out-of-date”  tools to place their career paths on a solid foundation.

Creatives at Behance can now use Adobe’s cloud to form creative companies in the cloud that all share an extensive and standardized tool set, saving considerable in IT infrastructure and software costs—not to mention gains in productivity. According to Scott Belsky, co-founder and chief executive officer, Behance.“We set out to connect the creative world and maximize the exposure that creative receive for their work. As creatives rely more on the social Web for collaboration and opportunity, creative people and teams will benefit from Behance's community features integrated into the creative process. We're thrilled to join Adobe and empower creative careers on a global scale."

Commenting on  the advantages of Adobe’s Creative Cloud for creatives was David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager at Adobe, “When we launched Creative Cloud earlier this year, we committed that we would give members new value on an ongoing basis. Last week, we launched new training features, file synchronization and sharing capabilities, digital publishing services and significant updates to a number of our tools, including Photoshop. When we launched Creative Cloud earlier this year, we committed that we would give members new value on an ongoing basis. Last week, we launched new training features, file synchronization and sharing capabilities, digital publishing services and significant updates to a number of our tools, including Photoshop.  Behance will play a key role in Adobe’s efforts to serve the creative world in the years to come and will accelerate our efforts to enable a more open and collaborative creative community.”

As far as Adobe plans for Behance,  Adobe reports that it will  integrate Behance’s community and portfolio capabilities with Adobe Creative Cloud  “allowing members to seamlessly create content, seek feedback, showcase their work and distribute it across devices’”


Friday, December 21, 2012

Cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructures drives down business IT costs further – Market expected to grow at an annual rate of 26 percent.

Companies are expected to flock to cloud based virtual desktop solutions over the next 4 years as business see potential dramatic decreases in IT operating costs from their adoption. . Besides the cloud as a way for established companies to reduce their IT costs, these companies also see the virtual desktop infrastructure as a way to leverage their existing IT infrastructure investment so that  they can still use them. Explaining was TechNavio, a cloud research company “One of the major advantages of adopting cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions is the resulting ability to reuse old IT infrastructure. Cloud-based services are delivered to end-users over the internet and therefore, end-user systems do not require high-end configurations to support applications. End-user systems merely need to display transmitted content, allow inputs from end-users, and transmit data to the cloud infrastructure. Further, with virtualization of network infrastructure, the gap between old infrastructure and modern infrastructure is minimized as old infrastructure can provide enhanced computing capabilities post virtualization. Therefore, the ability of cloud-based VDI solutions to support applications on existing infrastructure is driving their adoption among an increasing number of enterprises in the US.'

For many business, a virtual infrastructure solution is one way to keep their IT infrastructure intake as they migrate their applications to the cloud.  However for startup companies, virtual desktop infrastructures allow the company to completely eliminate the costs. In these companies, employees can use their own PCs, tablets and mobile devices to hook up the company’s virtual desktop infrastructure without IT involvement or costs. With further advancements in virtual desktop infrastructure, large scale processing tasks can be distributed to either the company’s public cloud service or processed with  any and all PCs attached to the virtual network (hardwired or mobile). .

TechNavio’s market research report, titled, "Cloud-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Market in the US 2012-2016," projects that the market for cloud based virtual desktops to grow at a CAGR of 26 percent from 2011 to 2016 within the United States”

The report also said that that the vendors dominating the market were Citrix Systems Inc., Desktone Inc., MokaFive Inc., and VMware Inc. Other vendors mentioned include SecureOnlineDesktop, RedHat Inc., WorldDesk Ltd., SCC, Dell Inc., and Netelligent Corp. TechNavio also pointed out that the primary reason the market is expected to grow at such a phenomenal rate is that virtual infrastructures reduce business IT costs especially desktop provisioning costs. Today IT costs can range anywhere between 2 and 15 percent of a company’s total cost of sales. With cloud based virtual desktop infrastructures those costs could almost be totally eliminated.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Cloud business process management company, Promapp, sees high-growth BPM possibilities in Australia and Europe -- appoints strategic board members and European rights manager

Promapp Solutions (New Zealand), a provider of low-cost, easy-to-use, cloud provisioned business process management software,  has reported that its expanding its  marketing into  Europe. The company reports that its BPM products experienced strong growth in Australia and New Zealand and that they see Europe also as region where high BPM growth opportunities are present.

Part of the Promapp's European growth strategy is the appointment of United Kingdom based Spedan Limited to manage the distribution rights for Europe.  It has also appointed board member, Mike Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Oxygen Business Solutions, a Australian SAP consultancy  as part of its international expansion strategy.

Commenting on the growth opportunities in the international market, Smith emphasized that "Promapp is at a pivotal stage in its growth, As a cloud provisioned, high ROI enterprise solution, the potential to carve out a global niche is very real – it's already underway."

Adam Faiers, Spedan CEO, who has considerable knowledge about Promapp's BPM products, emphasized that ProMapps BPM products were second to none, " "I was a customer of Promapp's for four years at SAI Global and when the opportunity to work with Promapp arose I jumped at it. Promapp process management software is simple, user-friendly, and remarkably affordable. I've not seen anything that comes close!"

Promapp CEO, Ivan Seselj, emphasized that the new release of its BPM software will also help expedite European  market acceptance of its BPM technology,  "clients are already expressing delight at the new release which sets new standards in usability and simplicity for the BPM industry."

Besides Smith, Promapp also appointed Mike Carden, Vice President, Small Business Operations at Cornerstone OnDemand, a global leader of cloud-based talent management software solutions,  to its board. Carden was founder of Sonar6 which was acquired by  Cornerstone OnDemand in March of this year.

Promapp is a Deloitte Fast 50 company,

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Cloud Velocitys turns public clouds into virtual data centers; Receives $5 million in funding

CloudVelocity announced that it has received $5 million in funding from the Mayfield fund. The funding is expected to further accelerate the use of public clouds and  hybrid cloud technology within  the enterprise market. According to   Rajeev Chawla, chief executive officer of CloudVelocity.“We are pleased to work with Mayfield Fund on this monumental effort to accelerate the adoption of public clouds. Our goal is to enable enterprises to operate hybrid clouds as seamless extensions of the data center. Cloud cloning, migration and failover are our first steps in that direction.” Also commenting  on the market impact of CloudVelocity's technology was Navin Chaddha, Mayfield Fund Managing Director. “We believe that CloudVelocity will have the same impact on public cloud adoption as VMware did on the adoption of server virtualization by making public clouds look like internal data centers.”

CloudVelocity has also announced the release of beta trial software of the Developer Edition of its cloud cloning software, The software is available for download at www.cloudvelocity.com. The  software allows those wishing to migrate their existing on-premise private clouds to Amazon We Services (AWS) EC2 cloud. CloudVelocity's Developer Edition lets developers clone multi-app tier clusters and services to the EC2 cloud and the company's Enterprise Edition lets users clone, migrate and failover multi-tier apps and services into Amazon's AWS EC2 cloud. 

The trial software is  based on the company's  patent-pending One Hybrid Cloud™ (OHC) platform which has been designed to allow a company to run its multi-tier applications without modification in the cloud as well to access services in the enterprises own data center. According to the company the CloudVelocity OHC platform delivers the promise of the hybrid cloud to enterprises. With the software, an enterprise can blueprint, clone and migrate applications between data centers and public clouds in an environment that allows full server, networking security and storage integration with AWS EC2 cloud. The company expects to announce a number of new cloud hybrid solutions for the other cloud services providers in 2013. 

Adopters of the new beta technology include Lealta Media. Commenting on the produce was Nitan Shingate, VP Engineering for Lealat Media. “The CloudVelocity Enterprise Edition software trial worked so well that we’ve chosen to use it ahead of schedule in our production environment for cloud failover. This will help ensure that our online business stays available within the AWS cloud, Because we cannot afford downtime,CloudVelocity has helped us to increase availability while also substantially reducing our expenses.”  


Friday, December 14, 2012

Adobe Cloud Revenues on Fast Growth Track

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With the announcement that Adobe Systems reached   $4..4  billion, in revenue for its 2012 fiscal year, Adobe reported that it added " approximately 10,000 Creative Cloud subscriptions per week during the quarter, versus the addition of 8,000 subscriptions per week in the third quarter."  Additionally, the company reported that it Document Services revenue achieved record revenue in the quarter $210.2 million. Adobe Marketing Cloud also obtained record quarterly revenue of $220.4 million  which represented a 32 percent year-over-year growth.
For the year Adobe reported that its Creative Cloud paid subscriptions grew to 325,000 with an "exiting annualized recurring revenue of  $153 million" for Adobe's Creative business. Advanced Marketing Cloud revenue for the year was also a record at $777 million (a 35 percent year-over-year growth). Document Services revenue for the year was also a record at $786 million. 
According to Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe, “We beat our Creative Cloud subscription goals and established Adobe Marketing Cloud as the leader in the exploding category of Digital Marketing during fiscal 2012.  In fiscal 2013 we intend to accelerate our pace of innovation, and drive integration between Creative Cloud and Adobe Marketing Cloud.”
Mark Garrett, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Adobe.  added “We're driving migration to a subscription model in our Creative business faster than we predicted a year ago, and we are confident fiscal 2013 will be the pivotal year for the transition, This will yield a stronger, more predictable recurring revenue model with higher long-term revenue growth.”