Information access provider Attivio has partnered with QlikTech to provide self-service BI and access to structured and unstructured information sources throughout the enterprise. With the merging of Attivio's Active Intelligence Engine (AIE) and QlikTech's QlikView Business Discovery platforms, the companies aim to allow for enhanced business insights and better decision making by enabling users to access, manage and interact with any type of information, regardless of source or format.

TIBCO Software Inc., a provider of infrastructure software on-premise and in the cloud, has announced the latest version of its analytics platform: Spotfire 4.5. This new release will feature visualization-based data discovery and collaboration capabilities for all types of extreme information, including big data. Additionally, Spotfire 4.5 will provide greater data exploration and new predictive analytics capabilities of both structured data and unstructured content, as well as iPad compatibility that allows users to construct "private-branded" Spotfire Analytics solutions. Together, these capabilities are intended to offer organizations the ability to leverage all of their data to better discover and predict business outcomes that can be delivered to a larger population.

IBM has announced plans to acquire Tealeaf Technology, Inc., a provider of customer experience analytics software that helps organizations react more quickly to consumer trends. With this agreement, IBM says it will support its Smarter Commerce initiative with the acquisition of qualitative analytics capabilities that provide CMOs, e-commerce, and customer service professionals with real-time and automated insights into customer buying experiences across online and mobile devices.

The Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), will co-host the OAUG Connection Point - Release 12.1/Fusion Applications conference, in partnership with the South Texas Oracle Applications Users Group (STOAUG) and the OAUG Upgrade SIG, July 11-12 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown in Austin, Tex. The call for presentations for the event is open through May 10.

Google has announced that Google BigQuery, a web service that lets users do interactive analysis of massive data sets, is now available to the public. Billed as enabling customers to "analyze terabytes of data with just a click of a button," the company says the data is secured, replicated across data centers, and can be easily exported.

At COLLABORATE 12, GSI, Inc., an Oracle Gold partner specializing in upgrades, rolled out its new proposition for users upgrading to Oracle JD Edwards current releases. The upgrade program applies to a variety of software releases dating back to 2000 and will enable users to continue to receive ongoing support and regain compliance while taking advantage of the latest features and enhancements built into the 9.x software. Once a project is engaged, GSI's new program seeks "100% satisfaction guaranteed" and the completion of the upgrade within 100 days.

Informatica Corporation, a provider of data integration software and services, has announced the latest release of its Informatica Cloud solution. Offered as an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS), the latest release from Informatica features the Cloud Connector Toolkit, Cloud Integration Templates, and new enterprise features, all of which are part of the new Informatica Cloud Developer Edition and allow developers to rapidly embed end-user customizable integration logic and connectivity into cloud applications.

Organizations are struggling with big data, which they define as any large-size data store that becomes unmanageable by standard technologies or methods, according to a new survey of 264 data managers and professionals who are subscribers to Database Trends and Applications. The survey was conducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc., in partnership with MarkLogic in January 2012. Among the key findings uncovered by the survey is the fact that unstructured data is on the rise, and ready to engulf current data management systems. Added to that concern, say respondents, is their belief that management does not understand the challenge that is looming, and is failing to recognize the significance of unstructured data assets to the business.

Open source business analytics provider Pentaho has released Pentaho Business Analytics 4.5, providing customers with new user-driven, interactive visualizations as well as expanded analytics capabilities that can access all sources of data. The product merges data integration with business analytics in one platform. The combination of data integration and business analytics, "allows the relationship between line-of-business and IT to come closer together," Donna Prlich, director of product and solutions marketing at Pentaho, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

Oracle addressed the need to make IT infrastructure and business analytics technologies simpler and more efficient in a presentation to OpenWorld Tokyo 2012 attendees that was also made available via live webcast. In addition to presenting its strategy and plans for business analytics, the company also unveiled new additions to its product portfolio. In his keynote address, Oracle president Mark Hurd explained how the business users of tomorrow will require faster and more comprehensive information access. "The true question with analytics is how to get the right information to the right person at the right time to make the right decision," he said.

IBM has introduced DB2 10 and InfoSphere Warehouse 10 software that integrates with big data systems, automatically compresses data into tighter spaces to prevent storage sprawl, and slices information from the past, present, and future to eliminate expensive application code. Over the past 4 years, more than 100 clients, 200 business partners, and hundreds of experts from IBM Research and Software Development Labs around the world collaborated to develop the new software.

MapR Technologies, Inc., provider of the MapR distribution for Apache Hadoop, has introduced new data connection options for Hadoop to enable a range of data ingress and egress alternatives for customers. These include direct file-based access using standard tools and file-based applications, direct database connectivity, Hadoop specific connectors via Sqoop, Flume and Hive; as well as direct access to popular data warehouses and applications using custom connectors. Additionally, technology providers Pentaho and Talend are partnering with MapR to provide direct integration with MapR's distribution, and MapR has also entered into a partnership with data warehouse and business intelligence platform vendor Tableau Software.

Helping customers manage the influx of mobile devices, networks and applications in the enterprise, SAP has unveiled a new release of the Afaria mobile device management solution. With the 7.0 release of Afaria, SAP aims to allow enterprise IT to more effectively manage mobile applications and devices through a new user interface (UI) for simplified administration, improved workflow and enterprise integration capabilities. "The consumerization of IT is driving our innovation path and commitment to providing customers with the industry's most comprehensive, robust and streamlined mobility management platform, including mobile device management," says Sanjay Poonen, president, Global Solutions, SAP.

Oracle has announced a major new release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, an integrated applications suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Enhancements in the 9.1 release focus on three main areas - usability and productivity, deeper industry-specific functionality, and greater support for global operations and compliance, Bob Monahan, senior director of product strategy and product management of JD Edwards, Oracle, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

SAP unveiled its roadmap for the database and mobile markets. At a press conference in San Francisco that was also made available online, Dr. Vishal Sikka, a member of the SAP executive Board, Technology & Innovation, said the company's vision for the SAP real-time data platform includes the SAP HANA platform, Sybase data management offerings, and SAP solutions for enterprise information management (EIM). "In our minds, and in our customers' minds there is now absolutely no doubt that HANA represents the database architecture for the future, for OLTP and OLAP, for analyzing structured and unstructured data, for legacy applications and for new applications," Sikka told the audience.

In a move intended to drive innovation in mobile solutions, SAP announced plans to acquire Syclo, a provider of enterprise mobile applications and technologies. The addition of Syclo's expertise in building and selling mobile solutions in industries such as utilities, oil & gas, life sciences and manufacturing is expected to enhance SAP mobile solutions. It is also expected to help accelerate the adoption and deployment of new mobile asset management and field service solutions on the Sybase Unwired Platform, part of the SAP mobile platform and the company's infrastructure for developing and managing mobile apps.

PK, a software firm based in The Netherlands, has been recognized with the InterSystems Award for Breakthrough Applications. PK, an InterSystems application partner, was recognized for its CU-BOX mobile application for real-time emergency services response measurement. CU-BOX uses the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance database system and InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform to provide critical, objective information about the quality of emergency healthcare delivery.

PK, a software firm based in The Netherlands, has been recognized with the InterSystems Award for Breakthrough Applications. PK, an InterSystems application partner, was recognized for its CU-BOX mobile application for real-time emergency services response measurement. CU-BOX uses the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance database system and InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform to provide critical, objective information about the quality of emergency healthcare delivery.

Pitney Bowes Software, a provider of customer data, analytics and communications management solutions, has released Portrait Explorer, a solution to enable business users deploy big data analytics. The tool organizes otherwise complex customer data stores into an intuitive library of "customer cards" that the company claims is as easy to navigate and operate as one's digital photo album. "The look and feel is immediately intuitive because it looks and feels just like your digital photo album," Jeff Nicholson, vice president of global marketing for Pitney Bowes, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

IBM today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Varicent Software, a provider of analytics software for compensation and sales performance management. Varicent is a privately held company, with headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Financial terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012, were not disclosed. "Varicent expands IBM's analytics portfolio into the sales function of organizations," Paul Hill, vice president, Performance Management, Business Analytics, IBM, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "It is a line-of-business play."

IBM introduced PureSystems, a new family of "expert integrated systems," with built-in expertise based on IBM's decades of experience running IT operations for tens of thousands of clients in 170 countries. With the aim of integrating all IT elements, both physical and virtual, IBM says the new systems offer clients an alternative to today's enterprise computing model, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain. According to IBM, PureSystems is the result of $2 billion in R&D and acquisitions over 4 years.

Oracle addressed the need to make IT infrastructure and business analytics technologies simpler and more efficient in a presentation to OpenWorld Tokyo 2012 attendees that was also made available via live webcast. In addition to presenting its strategy and plans for business analytics, the company also unveiled new additions to its product portfolio. In his keynote address, Oracle president Mark Hurd explained how the business users of tomorrow will require faster and more comprehensive information access. "The true question with analytics is how to get the right information to the right person at the right time to make the right decision," he said.

Oracle extended its Business Analytics portfolio, with the announcement of two new Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Oracle Manufacturing Analytics and Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Analytics. According to Oracle, these are the first and only analytic applications for manufacturing and asset management analysis and will enable customers and partners serving manufacturing, energy production, utilities and other asset-intensive industries to gain better insights and make decisions faster. Oracle says both solutions provide support for large numbers of concurrent users and are certified to run on Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine. Native support for tablet and mobile devices, such as the Apple iPad and iPhone is also provided.

Big Data. It's a term used to characterize those applications that have such enormous data sets, they have exceeded the capabilities and capacities of traditional database management systems. These huge data sets-measured in terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, and zettabytes-must instead span large clusters of servers and storage arrays. Search engine companies were the first to face this situation, and the result is an open source solution called Hadoop.

Attivio and TIBCO Software Inc. have announced that, as part of a new partnership agreement, the TIBCO Spotfire analytics platform has achieved the highest level of information access available within Attivio's Active Intelligence Engine (AIE). According to Attivio, its AIE ingests all types of structured data and unstructured content, and unlike a traditional data warehouse, does not require relationships between any data or content to be defined in advance prior to ingestion. In achieving platinum-level certification, Attivio says TIBCO Spotfire has been authenticated by Attivio to be able to present, analyze, access and leverage AIE's AI-SQL capabilities to provide data visualization, enhanced analytics of unstructured content and intuitive search and discovery, all in the same dashboard.

IBM has introduced DB2 10 and InfoSphere Warehouse 10 software that integrates with big data systems, automatically compresses data into tighter spaces to prevent storage sprawl, and slices information from the past, present, and future to eliminate expensive application code. Over the past 4 years, more than 100 clients, 200 business partners, and hundreds of experts from IBM Research and Software Development Labs around the world collaborated to develop the new software.

Objectivity, Inc. and Database Trends and Applications will present a webcast on the latest trends in big data analytics on Thursday April 12 at 9 am PT/ 12 noon ET. The webcast will cover the definition of big data and explain how to maximize existing architectures by utilizing NoSQL technologies to improve functionality and provide real-time results. There will be a focus on relationship analytics as well as an introduction to NoSQL data stores, object and graph databases, such as the architecture behind Objectivity/DB and InfiniteGraph.

The new SHARE study on social media BI is examined in eMarketer this month. Conducted among members of SHARE and GUIDE SHARE EUROPE, the study was sponsored by IBM and Marist College and fielded by Unisphere Research. The article, Companies Incorporate Social Media Monitoring into Bottom Line, points out that while only 52.8% of respondents say they are currently monitoring open online social media communities or networks, 22% of respondents said they would increase monitoring significantly in the next year, with an additional 37.9% saying they would do so over the next 1 to 2 years.

Oracle Corporation announced that GAAP total revenues for fiscal 2012 Q3, which ended Feb. 28, were up 3% to $9.0 billion, and non-GAAP total revenues were up 3% to $9.1 billion. Among the highlights for the quarter were Oracle's engineered systems. Hardware revenue for engineered systems grew 139% in the third quarter and bookings are strong going into the fourth quarter, said Oracle president Mark Hurd in a statement released by the company with the announcement of its quarterly financial results.