What is a Data Scientist?
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Earlier this year I looked at the question of “What Does a Data Scientist Do?” in a news roundup of articles and blog posts discussing that question. This week, I found the debate is raging on.
This week’s news roundup looks at the latest discussions on the question of “what is a data scientist” and why that question needs further consideration.
Microsoft Launches New Data Analytics Tool
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced his hopes of creating a data platform, and his first offerings include SQL Server 2014, Analytics Platform System, and Azure Intelligent Systems Service. SQL Server 2014 was launched last Tuesday, a tool with notable features like in-memory processing and Azure connectivity.
“Every aspect of Microsoft’s business has been fundamentally transformed because of data,” Nadella said at a presentation in San Francisco last week. “To be able to truly benefit from this platform, you need to have a data culture inside of your organization.”
This week’s roundup is about the continuing struggle of who will end up as everyone’s favorite provider of a data analytics tool.
Twitter Acquires Social Media Data Analytics Startup Gnip
As part of its efforts to monetize its historic data, Twitter this week announced its purchase of social media data analytics startup Gnip, a company it’s been working with since 2010.
“As Twitter has grown into a platform that delivers more than 500 million Tweets per day, Gnip has played a crucial role in collecting and digesting our public data and delivering the most essential Tweets to partners,” wrote Twitter Vice President of Global Development & Platform Jana Messerschmidt in .
This week’s news roundup features articles about the acquisition and the future of social media data analytics.
The Latest Data Analytics Interviews from Around the Web
“Sick of hearing about Big Data? Get used to it,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Nikki Waller this week. Big Data, analytics and data science are big in the news and in the business world and that’s not going to change any time soon. As technology evolves, organizations of all sorts will continue to improve their understanding and use of the data they collect.
This week’s roundup of articles and blog posts brings you data analytics interviews from around the Internet to bring you up to speed on the latest on the topic.
Cosmetics Company LUSH Saves £1M with Analytics
UK-based LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, worked with business intelligence firm QlikView to devise a plan that would save £1m, or about $1.66 million, over the course of two years. “We selected QlikView Business Discovery as it’s a very easy system for all of our staff to use, even with varying levels of technical experience,” said Scott Silverthorn, head of data services at the popular cosmetics chain.
Google BigQuery Analytics Tool Offers More Capacity for Less Money
Analytics tools have been big in the news so far this year, and the latest to make a newsworthy update is the Google BigQuery tool. Google announced this week that it’s cutting BigQuery’s cost by up to 85 percent and adding a greater capacity for analyzing data. Where it was once able to run through 1,000 rows of data in near real time, it will now be able to process 100,000 rows per second for just $5 a terabyte. The change will make it a major competitor for other analytics tools such as Amazon Kinesis.
This week’s news roundup brings you the big news about Google BigQuery along with expert analysis on what it means for the analytics tools market.
Platfora Analytics Software Startup Raises $38M
For anyone who’s not yet familiar with Hadoop, it’s an open-source software platform that allows organizations to store and manage large data sets. Hadoop is well-known in the data analytics software world, but it takes plenty of IT help to get the most out of it.
BMW Predictive Analytics to Improve Luxury Maker’s Cars
IBM announced this week that BMW would be using its predictive analytics software to help identify and repair problems in its test models within a few days instead of the weeks or months it has taken in the past. This week’s news roundup is about BMW predictive analytics and what this announcement means for IBM and the world’s auto manufacturers.
Understanding Employee Turnover and Increasing Retention with Analytics
Although the business press enthusiastically touts the benefits of analytics (and the related field of analyzing Big Data sources), they share far too few specifics about what that means for most companies. So this week, let’s take a look at one of the more common problems in workforce management: measuring and understanding employee turnover — then hopefully preventing it from happening in the future — with analytics.
GoodData Releases Open Analytics Platform
Software startup GoodData has debuted a new analytics platform that allows organizations to bring together their cloud-based and internally stored business intelligence.
“Advanced analytics can be the biggest advantage companies can have in today’s market, but most use just 10 percent of the data available to them,” said GoodData CEO Roman Stanek. “To get a true competitive advantage from analytics, businesses need to use all the data available to them – to move beyond big data and become all data enterprises.”
This news roundup brings you articles with information on GoodData’s platform and what it means for business.