Teradata Darryl McDonald's Blog

In-database-analytics(3)

Darryl McDonald — 11/11/2009

In-database-analytics(2)

Darryl McDonald — 11/11/2009

In-database-analytics(1)

Darryl McDonald — 11/11/2009

In-Database analytics: Teradata and SAS lead in speed by ‘thinking inside the box’

Darryl McDonald — 11/11/2009

Too many companies think slow -- outside the data warehouse box -- when it comes to advanced analytics. Despite the consensus that analytics must be operationalized to reap full value and benefit, most companies are still dealing with excessive data management, movement, redundancy, and complexity - leading to best case tedious processes that take far too much time and cost in today’s environment and worst case to average conclusions leading to average business decisions

Today, it pays to think, move and act fast… really fast, which means thinking inside the box, analyzing analytics models inside the database. On this topic, two press releases issued just days ago from the Teradata-SAS partnership have huge implications for every company that competes on analytics.

With the new releases of Teradata 13 and SAS 9.2, several key SAS procedures can execute in Teradata – further expanding the world’s best value proposition for accelerating queries and delivering maximum analytic performance.
SAS and Teradata continue to build our joint customer base: over 350 engagements in 24 months, and growing. The partnership has a strong lead over other vendors in this space who recently have attempted to make “just as good as claims” about their new in-database capabilities.
The new SAS-Teradata analytic think tank with Elder Research will provide companies with unmatched resources – real, live, cutting edge analytics leaders – to advise on brilliant new approaches and opportunities in data mining. In the Business Analytics Innovation Center, companies will learn how to make new inferences from currently unknown facts and quantify and score underlying critical future trends or patterns in their business that today go unnoticed. The Center will have a visionary lab for pilot programs, analytic workshops, and proofs of concept for prospective customers.

Thinking inside the box: it’s becoming a source of higher intelligence and competitive advantage. But don’t just take my word for it. Read what a leading IT firm has said in the Forrester Research teleconference, In-Database Analytics: Transforming The Data Warehouse Into The New Analytic Application Server, hosted by senior analyst James Kobielus:

"In-database analytics has a strong return on investment and the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) is an optimal platform for in-database analytics as a reusable application. In-database analytics cuts costs by allowing data mining specialists to consolidate analytical data marts into the EDW, reduces bandwidth utilization by eliminating the need to move massive analytical data sets to and from EDW, and shortens time to build, execute, deploy, and optimize predictive models by leveraging EDW horsepower."

James’ words, not mine – but I couldn’t have said it better. The point: when your business needs high intelligence delivered at the speed of light, it’s time to start thinking inside the box.

Darryl McDonald

In-database-analytics

David Placke — 11/11/2009

Recap of Teradata PARTNERS Conference - This year, there’s a lot to love

Rick Loconto — 10/30/2009

The Teradata team was busy with announcements last week at the annual PARTNERS User Group Conference – from the world’s first solid state data warehouse appliance to new Cloud Computing and vertical industry offers. The headlines below give you other highlights of media coverage of the PARTNERS Conference story. Check out the stories below, and go to www.teradata.com for more on the new announcements.

Teradata Kicks Off Annual Partners Conference with New High-Speed Appliance and Cloud Computing Offerings
Teradata: We still rule over Oracle, IBM in analytics:At conference, says it will offer its data warehousing technology for private corporate cloud
Teradata Labs Chief Downplays Database Machines From Oracle, HP, Netezza:Teradata R&D boss Scott Gnau dismisses competitors
Teradata announcements target public, private clouds
Teradata unveils SSD Blurr appliance
Data warehousing specialist promises cloud flexibility (with limits), and (oh by the way) solid-state hard drive speed
Teradata Bolsters CRM Solution

Since PARTNERS 2009 took place in Washington, D.C., we had government-focused sessions and an event at the National Press Club for government-focused media. Here are a few of the stories:

National Press Club Luncheon: The Role of Technology in Achieving Government Transparency from Teradata on Vimeo.

We ended the week with a great article in Barron’s Magazine. I guess this headline refers to pterodactyl, the flying dinosaur. Actually, the only thing Teradata and that dinosaur have in common is Greek roots for the names. But that’s OK – I loved the Barron’s article. Just read the first couple of paragraphs and you’ll see why:

Sounds Like a Dinosaur, but It’s No Small-Brainer

“Thousands of technology geeks representing some of the biggest companies in the world gathered at a convention center in Washington last week to swap stories, compare notes and make wish lists about their experiences with data warehousing and analytic software applications. Oh, and they had something else in common: they are all clients or partners of Teradata , the undisputed leader in the field of business intelligence. Known as the Partners Conference, the event is the world's biggest confab for data-warehousing and data-mining specialists. Some of Teradata's biggest competitors, including Oracle (ticker: ORCL) and International Business Machines (IBM), ponied up big bucks for the chance to impress the attendees last week -- at the 24th annual meeting of what started as an informal user group of about 25 people.

“In the 30 years since it was incorporated, the result of a collaboration between researchers at CalTech and the technology group at Citibank, Teradata (TDC) has been helping companies gain a competitive edge by analyzing the raw data from their business operations, identifying inefficiencies and providing solutions using super-fast and super-sophisticated software applications.”

If you want to read more about all the announcements we made last week, check out our Conference Newsroom – a lot of good info here on customer wins and partnerships as well.

I’ll share more highlights in another posting, but as you can tell, we had a great event. Look forward to 2010 in San Diego!

Darryl

Join the real movers and shakers in Washington!

Darryl McDonald — 10/20/2009

Here’s a news flash! The epicenter of advanced information technology is moving this weekend from Silicon Valley to the US capital! Intelligence is about to break loose in Washington! Active Enterprise Intelligence, that is – as Teradata’s customers and our solutions and partners take center stage. The Teradata fan base from all over the planet is converging on DC!

On Sunday it officially begins – our 24th annual Teradata PARTNERS User Group Conference & Expo, through Thursday, October 22, 2009, at the Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center in Washington, DC. Most of us know that the conference is organized by Teradata customers, and is the world's largest annual data warehousing and enterprise analytics educational conference and exposition.

The conference theme is “Accelerating Insight” – and every educational session plus the networking opportunities at the event will help attendees better manage a decision-making process that is increasing in velocity and complexity. We’ll have participants from hundreds of organizations around the globe in dozens of industries, showcasing new solutions and best practices from Teradata and a record-breaking number of partners.

The conference has more than 200 sessions – that cover all aspects of active enterprise data warehousing and business intelligence. They’ll be led by Teradata customers, industry analysts, consultants, academics from the Teradata University Network, as well as Teradata’s internal experts.

Mike Koehler, our president and CEO, will speak during the Monday general session as will James Vollmer, our conference host from Enterprise Holdings, followed by Don Tapscott, professor at the University of Toronto, consultant and author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

I like the sound of that because it echoes this fact: COLLABORATION WITH TERADATA CHANGES EVERYTHING! Okay, I haven’t written a book with this title yet – but it could happen. Teradata’s active enterprise intelligence has positively transformed hundreds of organizations, thousands of groups and millions of users – and will keep doing it for many years!

Whether you are a Teradata customer or a Teradata prospect, I hope you are on your way soon to the Teradata PARTNERS Conference. That’s where you’ll learn more about some of the most agile enterprises on the planet, all leveraging Teradata. This experience could just make you a fan, spark your business vision, and have you saying “Teradata changes everything!”

Look forwarding to seeing you at the conference!

Darryl

Speeding Past Milestones

Darryl McDonald — 10/1/2009

The technology industry is constantly changing - delivering a rapid stream of new innovations and products.

It’s been two years since Teradata became an independent company and in that time, we’ve successfully moved through a lot of product cycles, technology goals and company milestones. I hasten to add we have many more goals set for the coming years.

Like what? Here are a few that will be front and center for us.

We’ll continue to bring to customers more powerful analytic database and platform capabilities and drive greater functionality to our product line. We’re also focusing on improving our predictive analysis and real-time intelligence to help customers make the decisions they need move their businesses forward — and make them quickly.

That's why Teradata has cultivated working partnerships with leading innovators in information and services to deliver the robust, cutting-edge technology you need to build world-class, analytic solutions. Our list of partners reads like a who’s who of industry leaders in technology because over the years we’ve taken great care to form alliances with the best. These relationships give us the power to develop robust offerings that strengthen our enterprise data warehouse solutions.

It’s been a fast two years – just one more reminder of how quickly the tech industry continues to move.

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Darryl McDonald — 10/1/2009

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Darryl McDonald — 10/1/2009

Beyond the Buzz: The Quiet Thunder of Active Data Warehousing

Darryl McDonald — 9/10/2009

That cicada buzzing sound you hear in the high-tech media around data appliances may lead some to believe that this is where all the IT excitement is. But it’s a distraction from the real excitement. Sure, I know we’ve contributed to that buzz to some degree – with our recent platform family momentum news.

But the real, rules-changing, money-making excitement in the global Teradata customer community continues to be in active enterprise intelligence™ (AEI), especially for frontline business users. It works from a platform we’ve been calling Active Data Warehousing (ADW) for years. It continues to be Something Worth Talking About. Some prefer the term “pervasive BI” or “operational BI.”

Analyst James Kobielus gets it. In one of his reports1 he wrote: “For the most time-critical decisions, enterprises require ‘really urgent’ analytics.” This is AEI, facilitated by fresh data, in-database analytics, and event triggers that get dramatic business results in real time. Another group that gets it is Judy Davis, Colin White, and Claudia Imhoff, who have a new report: Operational Business Intelligence: The State of the Art.

To cut to the chase, leading edge companies are using AEI to:

Personalize customer web pages in real time with the most recent and relevant detailed information a million times a day (Travelocity)
Manage data from retail point of sale systems at every check stand to track and manage prices, inventory, and customer service in real time (Haggen)
Capture and integrate web interaction data with information across all other selling channels in real time, to ensure personalized individual customer engagements anywhere, anytime they touch the business (JD Williams)
Detect business fraud and crime in real time as it is taking place (Paypal)
Automate claims processing in real time with rules, data mining, and embedded BI – (Highmark)

Database boxes are cool and we get a big share of those, but beyond the buzz is the sound of smart money, investing in active data warehousing – and getting a quiet thunder of applause from IT and analytics players focused on delivering dramatic business value.

1 “Really Urgent Analytics: The Sweet Spot for Real-Time Data Warehousing” Forrester Research, August 2008

It's Time to Take Your Data’s Temperature

Darryl McDonald — 8/25/2009

Don’t look now but there’s a large wave of data at your company’s doorstep. It comes in the form of customer transactions, inventory, shipments, bills, purchase orders, compliance…the list goes on and it’s growing fast.

What to do with it all? All data is not created "EQUAL"!

You can’t keep it all live because that gets expensive. You can’t throw it out because competition is using more data to compete with you, not to mention the many government regulations require you not to. And you can’t stash it in the garage (tape silo) like your summer camping gear. Besides, there’s real business value in all that detailed data.

The answer is virtual storage. Virtual means that the data placement, organization and management are all handled automatically and the right data are always available for reporting and analysis. That translates into timely answers to business questions, while cutting down on wasted time and money.

Teradata Virtual Storage™ will automatically tag the data you use most often as “hot” (and put it in a faster area of the storage system) and the data you use less often as “cold” (in a slower part of storage) - all without administrative intervention. I might point out that our virtual storage, with its temperature gauge, is unique to Teradata.

Staying ahead of the data wave means taking its temperature and treating it correctly. Have you taken your data’s temperature lately? Send me a note. I’d like to hear about it.

Innovation + Affordability = Enterprise Intelligence

Darryl McDonald — 8/24/2009

Who needs intelligence? It’d be hard to find a company that says it doesn’t. But when it comes to the daily grind of IT, most firms are focused on processing lots of data fast.

Because staying a step ahead of growing data volumes is no small feat. But can you gain insights and intelligence about that data at the same time? You can.

At Teradata, our engineers have worked hard to move our new platform into a realm that brings affordable intelligence in the data warehouse to a broader segment of the marketplace. Those customers who previously thought Teradata was only for large customers should check out Teradata 13.

We boosted overall performance by 30 percent. If we consider the combination of software and hardware platform performance, Teradata performance is seven times faster over that same time period.

The way I look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Teradata has been the leader for 8 years running by outperforming all of the competition in the marketplace, including Oracle and Netezza. With Teradata 13, we are extending our lead by adding another 30 percent of overall performance, and new important capabilities. Teradata has more than doubled its software performance based on improvements in the last three years. If we consider the combination of software and hardware platform performance, Teradata 13 performance is seven times faster over that same time period.

Teradata 13 is the best price-performer in the marketplace and is the foundation that powers the industry’s only purpose-built data warehouse platform family, which includes the Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse platform, the Data Warehouse Appliance, Extreme Data Appliance, Data Mart Appliance and the Data Mart Edition.

Teradata 13 provides customers with an affordable foundation for a wide range of business analytics spanning departmental and enterprise intelligence for all sizes of companies. And we’ve raised the bar by integrating geospatial processing, and Teradata 13 is now optimized for online analytical processing. Customers can now load location data into the data warehouse and that means a company can quickly perform analysis about the location of customers to correlate buying trends in different areas.

All of this raw performance translates to agility and speed. But it’s the underlying tools that really bring intelligence to the customer. Because, at the end of the day, if you can’t discover insights in your customer data, the brute horsepower just doesn’t matter.

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Keeping up with the Joneses

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

The idea of benchmarking isn’t new. We constantly compare our homes, our cars, and our jobs to those around us. In business, the idea is embedded in our daily “to do” list as we strive to stay competitive and highlight how we’re different. For some reason, we continually feel the need to compare our performance against others in the markets and customers we serve.

And often, it’s for the good of the company. It’s through competitive benchmarking that we’re able to discover our strengths, identify the areas where we can improve, and ultimately define best practices for our company.

If you focus only on the cost, you are at risk of missing the value. When we talk in terms of pricing and value, we consider a number of factors:

What you get. A single-purpose solution may be cheaper, but if you add up the total cost of all you need to get the same result – are you still saving money?
Lifespan. Technology purchases are investments. What is the lifespan of your purchase and does it fit your organization’s long-term plans? Can you co-exist with multiple generations/releases?
No trade-offs. To receive equal performance or capabilities, do you have to make concessions on timeframe, availability or another dimension? What is the total cost of those tradeoffs?
Support. What services are available to you as part of your purchase?
Reputation. How is the solution rated – by independent experts on qualities that matter to you?
Results. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. To make that point, when it comes to ROI, do you know if your “R” is ultimately larger than your “I”?

Let’s face it, the most valuable asset you have to help you keep up with—and surpass—the Joneses is your company’s data. That’s exactly what makes it priceless. What do you get from your data?

What Should Keep You Up At Night?

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

In tough times and not so tough and in good times and bad, corporate executives spend sleepless nights for all sorts of reasons. Maybe it’s opening in a new market, maybe it’s declining sales or maybe it’s staffing issues. Problems like these are the ones executives know about, and presumably are already working to correct.

But what about the problems senior management doesn’t know about? The ones that creep up, like an eroding customer base, or hidden costs canceling out the profit margin? Or any of a dozen other ominous problems that could jeopardize the company’s survival?

What you don’t know will hurt you. It’s not only a matter of asking the right questions. Rather, it’s a matter of looking at the complete pool of data and zeroing in on the right answer.

Companies using an enterprise data warehouse to deliver an integrated view of their business activities already have at their fingertips all the data across applications and divisions. They can spot a threatening ailment and take action. Consider a big North American retailer that was able to detect and stop a crime ring from bilking the stores through fraudulent merchandise returns. By using near real-time verification and validation of customer receipts, this company reduced returns fraud by $2.3 million in the first year and realized 100% ROI within five months. This retailer and other customers have that enterprise data advantage of being able to spot hidden problems before they become bigger problems.

When information is in one place and fully integrated, senior executives have the tools at their disposal to identify and address company-threatening hidden problems. That translates into better leadership and fewer things to keep an executive up at night when there’s more important things to do, like get some rest so you can strategize on how to leapfrog competitors in the next market upturn.

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Freescale Semiconductor Wins Best Practices Award with Help from Teradata

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

At Teradata we look at business data in an original way. While other business intelligence players look at data marts as the way to deploy information, we take a more centralized and integrated view. That’s what makes us different. It’s also what makes our customers different. Different as in distinguished, as in recognized leaders in their industries.

As in Freescale Semiconductor, which just won Data Warehousing Institute’s prestigious Best Practices Award in the Enterprise Business Intelligence category. When Freescale came to us, they said they wanted an integrated information environment across the enterprise built on well-defined, timely data, with easy-to-use front-end tools to make workers more effective in their jobs. We said, no problem.

A first for the semiconductor industry, Freescale’s joint business and IT program now combines factory, engineering and business data in one data warehouse, enabling cross-domain analytics. But the program has had business benefits beyond the IT department. Freescale launched successful reengineering initiatives in its supply chain, manufacturing, customer service, quality and finance divisions and also shored up underlying weaknesses in its business intelligence infrastructure.

Results soon followed. Freescale has:

Increased the percent of salable chips produced in each manufacturing run, contributing millions of dollars to the gross margin
Reduced response to customer quality incidents from an average of 25 days to 14 days
Cut revenue reporting to 10 minutes, down from a full day

The Freescale Enterprise Business Intelligence program is now the information and analytics backbone of virtually all the company’s business applications. Some 92 percent of employees use it weekly and the demand for it continues to grow.

We congratulate Freescale for its award, which recognizes its innovative business intelligence and data warehousing program.

A Disaster Doesn't Have to Be a Disaster

Darryl McDonald — 10/5/2009

Mention "natural disaster" to most people and they'll think of floods, earthquakes or hurricanes. Mention "human-induced disaster" to IT people and they'll have equally frightening thoughts. But whether natural or human--storm or hacker--disasters are easier to get through if you’re prepared.

That's why we developed the Teradata Disaster Recovery Solution. It delivers the functionality you need without requiring your chief technology officers to bear the expense--in time and money--of building a system on their own.

The Teradata Disaster Recovery Solution is a dedicated and secured facility. It comes with equipment, software licenses, database administrators trained in disaster recovery and much more. It's a complete package, including the cost of cooling, powering and running servers.

The first step we take with clients is a simulated failure orchestrated by our team of disaster-recovery engineers. This is always an eye-opening experience, as customers see the extent of their vulnerability and realize it's far better to discover it in a test than in the aftermath of a real event.

In other words, we like to think of disaster recovery the same way a company might think of security. Smart companies don't fix security holes after a breach. And they approach disaster recovery the same way: they don't wait till after a disaster to start taking it seriously.

And when you do consider it seriously, the next step is to consider the Teradata Disaster Recovery Solution. It's an effective shield against data-warehouse downtime and, in the unfortunate event of an unforeseen failure, it includes the industry's best tools and services to recover from those challenging times.

Have you ever faced a crisis in your data warehouse? Hacker break-in? Busted pipe? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

Create spectacular experiences: Make your business a theme park!

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Daring, visionary retailers that lead the pack in customer management today focus on creating spectacular customer experiences. One of these is Cabela’s, an outdoor lover’s paradise that transforms store interiors into virtual theme parks for customers. That’s a huge differentiator – like stepping into another world.

The term “experiential marketing” was coined by Bernd Schmitt, who wrote in his book of the same name: “The degree to which a company is able to deliver a desirable customer experience – and to use information technology, brands, and integrated communications and entertainment to do so – will largely determine its success in the global marketplace of the new millennium.”

He was right, and I focus on Cabela’s because they are doing exactly this. They are getting lots of attention from retail news media because they are so successful. Well, okay I admit they fascinate me also because their managers are informed by a Teradata intelligence engine running SAS. You can and should read all about Cabela’s here.

Cabela’s is also great at personalizing customer experiences. Years ago a book called The Experience Economy contained a smart chart which I have adapted here. It shows the value of a customer experience rising in value as it becomes more personal and differentiated. The book refers to customers not as buyers of goods and services, but as “buyers of experiences.” Good point. Cabela’s has put all of this into practice.

Hey! Someone forgot to tell Cabela’s there is an economic downturn. Their customers forget it too, the minute they walk in. That’s the kind of retail experience you get when you bring together database-driven intelligence with unlimited imagination.

Proof Demand Chain Visibility Pays

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Which Fortune 500 companies have the best managed supply chains? The AMR Research 2009 list of 25 Supply Chain Winners tells the tale. These winners are on what AMR Research calls a "flight to quality," and they see a demand-driven supply chain as the competitive pathway.

We were gratified to note that from the top of the list to the bottom and many points in between, these leaders are Teradata customers, 15 in all. Writes AMR Research, "Their ability to sense and respond to shifting levels of demand is especially critical during a downturn," and they benefit from better visibility into their operations to make smarter decisions.

AMR Research used three financial metrics to rank Fortune 500 list retailers and manufacturers: return on assets, inventory turns, and revenue growth. That last one, impact to bottom line, is especially important as it is what allows these companies to continue to make strategic investments in IT and other parts of their business. Those investments will help them emerge faster and stronger when their demand begins to signal the economic turnaround.

The Developer’s Lifeline

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Remember the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”? Remember how contestants who got in trouble could make a “lifeline” phone call for help?

Imagine you’re a software developer faced with a data warehouse problem that’s stumping you and your smartest colleagues. Where do you turn to get an answer fast?

Here’s your lifeline: Teradata Developer Exchange. It’s a dream site where developers, partners and prospects can go to find a wide array of resources to solve any number of data-warehouse problems.

Teradata Developer Exchange serves a thriving and dynamic online data-warehouse community. It connects Teradata engineers, customers, partners and academics who are building and deploying solutions based on the market-leading Teradata platforms and database.

What’s different about Teradata Developer Exchange is that it creates a collaborative environment where participants can help others, develop code, work on technical solutions, and discuss and learn about relevant issues for their Teradata products and services.

Teradata Developer Exchange is a global site including developers from around the world…Scotland, Paris, Sydney and more. Even Regis Philbin couldn’t offer a lifeline like that.

Teradata Magazine Online – Our Best Yet!

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

I’d like to be the first to introduce you to our newest edition of Teradata Magazine Online. I feel particularly excited about this issue as its central theme is what is currently on most of our minds: how to survive the bleak economy. This issue of Teradata Magazine Online shares insights and best practices as to how to improve operating efficiency , become more accountable and most importantly, how to prospect for the future by actively gathering intelligence.

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this release of Teradata Magazine Online. Feel free to contact me on Twitter (@darryl_mcdonald) or leave a comment below. Happy reading!

Teradata CRM Going Full Speed Ahead Through a Hurricane

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Great opportunities present themselves even when market downturns spook consumers and create chaos. Companies brainstorm for ways to get more and spend less. They pay closer attention to customers. They dig around in their databases for economic insight and revenue opportunity.

Make no mistake, it’s not easy to manage customer relationships, especially when those complex relationships extend across a variety of different marketing channels. A good set of customer relationship management (CRM) tools is critical for any business weathering an economic hurricane like the one blowing through our markets.

We at Teradata think our CRM software is a powerful intelligence tool kit for businesses both in times of market upheaval and booms.

I was pleased to see Teradata’s CRM portfolio advancing in Gartner’s latest report, “Magic Quadrant for CRM Multichannel Campaign Management (MCCM)” by Adam Sarner. Multichannel campaign management refers to marketing processes that enable companies to communicate with customers across channels such as web sites, email, mobile devices, call centers, direct mail, stores, branches and communities of interest.

Out of hundreds of CRM software products, the new Gartner report reviews just sixteen competing CRM software vendors across the world, which is one reason why Teradata’s placement in the Leader’s Quadrant with only three others is noteworthy. The sweetener is Gartner’s comment that: the MCCM market continues to show overall positive growth. We are a leader in a market that is in fast-forward mode.

Customer relationships are everything to a business, especially when a stormy economy is blowing your roof off – and competitors bite and claw. What better time to have your CRM act together? What do you think?

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Application Administrator — 5/1/2009

What do you get when you combine the power of SAP and Teradata?

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

You get intelligence that screams. This translates to a competitive business advantage. Imagine Einstein behind the wheel of a Buggati, the world’s fastest racing vehicle. Not your typical driver – or automobile. Today, SAP and Teradata announced an expanded partnership so SAP Business Warehouse (BW) will run on Teradata. This is not your typical BI and database alliance – though the combination is catching on. The deeper collaboration will result in a competitive advantage for our shared customers. Our engineers have already started work to make it happen. Our customers will benefit from the integration to a single enterprise data warehouse platform - they will be able to:

Reduce the complexity and data movement that has been typical for many joint Teradata and SAP users. Our partnership will also add functionality through BI consolidation and standardization.
Increase user visibility to detailed enterprise data to provide richer business insight and faster decision making.
Increase the ease-of-use of their BI architecture
Lower total cost of ownership for SAP and Teradata systems while protecting and extending the value of the business investment in our respective technologies

We are also building a joint Co-Innovation Lab in SAP's offices in Palo Alto, California, where customers can come and work with us on integration opportunities between SAP & Teradata. We’ll promote this in the interest of giving our customers everything they need to raise their collective intelligence and accelerate their business growth. Not every one of us is an Einstein, but with the power of SAP and Teradata at our fingertips, we will operate with increased intelligence at unprecedented speed. That’s how international races – in business and on the track – are always won.

Taxing Matters

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

These days it’s hard to find a state budget that isn’t being severely impacted by the economy. Some states are being hit hard with huge deficits, holding up tax refunds and making deep cuts in spending as obvious sources of tax revenue dry up.

Others are turning to less obvious sources, such as revenue from tax scofflaws. These states are using advanced data warehousing technology to discover and recover millions in unrealized revenue. Seven states that use Teradata for tax matters are finding gold mines in unreported tax revenues. In the past few years, over half have recovered more than a billion dollars in underreported and unreported taxes – that’s Billion with a “B”.

They’re recovering the revenue by developing and using their data warehouses. Government workers can drill and mine every pocket of the state's tax data to find where taxes are owed but not yet paid. They can build powerful data mining programs that search within these data warehouses across data retrieved from multiple databases to sort out the tax evaders.

Scoring mechanisms allow the states to pursue those revenue sources that can most likely be recovered. It’s ensuring that those taxpayers that avoid taxes are identified and all citizens pay their fair share of the tax burden.

This is very important to states as layoffs and cutbacks in state government departments multiply – including state revenue organizations. If those laid-off workers were provided with the latest data-mining and warehousing tools and technology, they would not only be able to pay for their salaries but also could bring in additional revenues.

With our annual tax deadline upon us, I’m proud that Teradata can help state revenue agencies. Sure, nobody really likes taxes, but we sure do like for our local governments to work well and provide the public services we all need and want. And I do like to know that while I am paying my taxes, everyone else is too. Using technology to help make sure we all share equally in paying for those services makes sense.

Seeing Around Corners: How Data Can Help

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Computer scientist Alan Kay once said that “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Kay did: he helped invent the windowing user interface we now use every day.

It’d be nice if more companies could do what Kay did and invent the future, preferably one that includes a robust rebound. They can’t. But what they can do is anticipate its arrival. To do that, they need better data-collection practices. It’s the best way to hear the doorbell amid all the false alarms.

Lora Cecere over at AMR Research laid out some insights on this topic in her recent report Recovery Strategies: Seven Ways to Sense Demand and Predict the Upturn.

One piece of advice she has for businesses: think about your value chain, then design sensing mechanisms into your relationships. In doing so, your company can better understand point of sale and inventory movement data to help determine true shopper demand. This will make you more agile and efficient at all times. And -- especially in these times -- it may tip you to an upturn.

For retailers, it’s important to make use of downstream data from points of sale and inventory locations. This information can be used to reduce channel latency, shorten your time for replenishment and provide intelligence on shoppers’ appetites.

Lora cautions that this type of strategy is most effective for manufacturers with a critical mass of retailers in the channel sharing data. That translates into a lot of data at critical points of the value chain for collecting intelligence. She cites the effective data sharing efforts by a number of companies including Home Depot, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart. Thank you, Lora, for those insights and others in AMR’s blog.

Lora is also dead-on with her perspective on the benefits of moving from passive to active forecasting. It’s vital to move ahead in the area of forecasting processes so the timeframes are closer in line with the shifts in the market.

I’ll leave you with a final thought: the advantage in the next up economy will go to those companies that put in place active forecasting systems which better sense the shifts in customer demand. Or, as Lora puts it, “The answer is simple: improve capabilities to better sense demand. Companies need to reduce demand latency to see the upturn quicker. If not, decisions will be made two weeks too late.”

You can be sure Teradata will be helping businesses put those active forecasting systems in place to detect subtle shifts in demand and keep them ahead of the curve, just like we have for dozens of other industry leaders.

PARTNERS 2009: Accelerating Insight

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Every year, our annual Teradata PARTNERS gathering brings together the sharpest minds in data warehousing and enterprise analytics. For five days, users get one of the best educational experiences in gaining value from enterprise analytics through a full dose of insight from keynotes, sessions and panel discussions by leading experts. In total, there are more than 200 sessions, ranging from innovative best practices to partnership stories and executive challenges.

This year’s PARTNERS Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. on October 18 through 22. The customer committee that guides the conference, the PARTNERS Steering Committee, is planning to go deep and wide into the conference theme of “Accelerating Insight.” I look forward to the smart discussions and to some of the world’s best education from leading-edge experts with enough user energy to power a city for a week.

"Accelerating Insight" is a theme that makes you think because it can have more than one meaning. I’d say the most obvious relates to today’s need to get to insights faster. In today’s economy, we can no longer afford to wait even a couple of days for the analytics needed to make critical decisions - that era is long gone. The theme also suggests the accelerating pace of today’s business – the need to get data and analysis to the right people at the right time.

The idea of businesses – and governments! - needing to accelerate insights is also part of a bigger dialogue going on in the IT industry. Take, for example, a recent McKinsey Quarterly article titled, Five trends that will shape business in 2009. One of the trends predicts that regulators will require more from IT. In the U.S., the article says “in the future, policy makers and regulators will probably demand that IT systems capture more and better data in order to gain greater insight into and control over how banks manage risk, pharma companies manage drugs, and industrial companies affect the environment.”

As everyone knows, at Teradata, we live and breathe data and analytics and we’re also aware that many great ideas come from great customers. That’s why we look forward to hearing about those great ideas in submitted papers, which the steering committee will be accepting until March 16, 2009. So, bring on your best practices in using your Teradata system – we want the best real-world uses of data warehousing and analytics! You can find more information online at http://www.teradata.com/teradata-partners/conference/speak.cfm

One of our newer traditions, the ComputerWorld Enterprise Intelligence Awards, will be back for a second year. Based on innovation, business impact and the financial returns, awards will be presented in these categories: Integrated View of the Business, Industry Innovation, Excellence in BI and Analytics, Performance Management, and Customer Intelligence and Management.

So, package up all those great ideas and bring them on!

Your customers' pockets - Thoughts for those who sell things...

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Obviously your company is in business to earn more of the money that’s in your customers’ pockets. But did you realize one of the best ways to do that is to actually be IN those pockets?

No, I’m not suggesting anything illicit. I think you should market to people where they are and to that little mobile device that always seems to be either in our pockets, purses or hands. Every day, I see examples of companies effectively leveraging the mobile channel to market their products and services. One national retailer tested a mobile call-to-action campaign that was over 500% more effective than a traditional 800 number…not bad, eh?

We all know mobile devices are already way more than just phones and they’re improving fast. Analysts say smart phone adoption is projected to reach critical mass by 2012 and are now an active node on the Internet. Since June 2008, on average, says Nielsen, Americans used their mobile phones over 1.5 times more to send text messages than to make phone calls.

Many of us are using mobile devices to redeem promotions at the grocery store, as our boarding pass for a flight, to navigate through traffic and to set all sorts of devices at home.

Your customers can conduct more business while they’re on the move, so go with them!

Getting your message across requires that you make your communications relevant, significant, and timely – just like in effective traditional marketing efforts. But, mobile can help you refine all three of those messaging “must haves” as part of a sophisticated marketing campaign. Your message has to be relevant and significant or your customers will ignore you or even worse, block you out. We recommend integrating mobile into your regular communications process, including the BI environment and your relationship management tool set – where the goal is to have a seamless, synchronized message, regardless of channel.

Nothing beats mobile for being timely. We can catch customers “in the act” of fact-finding, shopping, browsing, buying – at any point in the decision making process. (Maybe even when they’re in front of your restaurant or looking right at your product while "live" in the store or online.)

In other ways, the ever-by-our-side mobile channel is the best channel to turn power back over to your customers – so they can decide, at the right time for them, when to pull messages and when to ask for those messages to be delivered – as they walk into a store or travel to a new location.

There’s more -- in these recessionary times, mobile can be a cost effective alternative to the traditional ways of communicating with your customers.

You can get started with a campaign that captures the data from mobile devices and makes that information part of your relationship management application and data warehouse. Teradata can help with Teradata Relationship Management for Mobile.

Mobile channels provide an opportunity to learn from customers and engage in their mobile lifestyles. Relevant, significant and timely messages delivered to your customers’ pockets could mean more money in yours… Don’t let the opportunity pass you by.

Questions for you:

Will you let marketers make tailored offers to you on your mobile phone?
Are you using mobile marketing? If yes, how?
Do you have a relationship with your customers? Can you reach them wherever they are?

Also I think you may be interested in this recent research from Lisa Loftis of Intelligent Solutions Inc. on Teradata: Ringing In the Customers-Harnessing the Power of Mobile Marketing

On TARP, Transparency and Technology

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Where has the taxpayers' money gone?

With a standing-room-only crowd of Teradata colleagues, I watched President Obama’s inauguration with great interest. The room was full of expectation for a new era. Watching this enthusiasm, I couldn’t help but think that Teradata can help the government deliver on its promise.

As officers and employees of a technology company, we’ve certainly noticed how the new administration embraces technology, from the weekly Web addresses to the president’s Blackberry to the executive order for greater transparency that includes using the Web to report directly to the American people.

Add to this the fact that Teradata helps companies around the world find new ways of seeing their business through integrated, enterprise data and making that data available to everyone who needs it, whenever they need it. And it’s not surprising that we have some suggestions on how the public sector can also exploit technology for smarter decisions and greater transparency.

Take the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), for example. Sophisticated data consolidation and analysis technology exists today and can be used to create a database that provides a complete picture of the TARP funds with the goal of creating an efficient mechanism for Congressional oversight, audits and investigations.

Based on what is known about TARP, there are a number of obstacles making it hard to answer the simple question: What’s happened with the taxpayers’ money?

Financial data related to TARP is presented in filings to various agencies including the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, Treasury and more.
The data sources required to enable transparency are housed in various separate agencies, systems and formats.
Corporate press releases, news articles, indexes, corporate profiles, and other non-government financial information deliver additional insight into usage.

Combining government data with detailed third-party data into one database would create a complete profile of each institution’s financial use of TARP funds. Such a database can also provide the ability to monitor inconsistencies and oversight in near real time or at least on a monthly basis.

This type of system is necessary not only to ensure transparency, but also to provide one consolidated view into the uses of TARP to reassure the American people that our government will, with confidence, be able to answer the question: Where has the taxpayers’ money gone?

It's Magic

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

With the start of the new year came Gartner’s 2008 “Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems (DBMS)”, following the recent “Gartner Server Evaluation Model (SEM) Toolkit 5 for Q408”. Gartner takes great pains to validate vendor performance and that customers really do achieve value and performance, so these reports are important references. In both, Teradata is the clear leader, which should provide good assurance for our customers and those considering Teradata.

Gartner states that “the data warehouse is a mission-critical system” that has evolved into “an analytics infrastructure repository for the enterprise.” Teradata is positioned in the uppermost right corner of the MQ. That’s the leaders quadrant, where Teradata has been since the reports started a decade ago. And we’ve been leading in that quadrant the whole time.

According to Gartner, the leaders quadrant “contains those vendors that demonstrate the greatest degree of support for data warehouses of all sizes, with large numbers of concurrent users and management of mixed data warehousing workloads.” The report adds that leaders “consistently demonstrate customer satisfaction and strong support.” Criteria also include longevity, strong hardware alliances, and “the lowest risk for successful data warehouse implementations.”

The new report recognized Teradata for our 30 years of experience in data warehousing design, consulting and deployment, our strong customer base, Teradata’s steady growth, our Active Data Warehousing; data models and professional services; software strength; and the introduction of the Teradata Purpose-Built Platform Family as well as pricing.

I truly believe that in tough economic times, smart companies seek experience, not experiments. Companies are finding that our data warehouse platform family and consulting expertise provide significant cost savings and help with rapid growth. And these reports help validate this.

It’s a great way to start 2009.

Ahead of the Pack

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Well, it looks like innovation is the main positive and hopeful business topic for year-end 2008.

Industry and academic heavyweights are giving speeches and publishing articles, calling for more innovation and offering new dimensions for innovation. It’s the core of America’s competitiveness, says one. It’s measured by how many Ph.D.’s are graduating from US schools, says another. Nonsense, says still another, America’s marketing savvy counts, too. It’s not just what you invent, it’s what you do with it. Other voices say America’s competitiveness depends on innovation and the winners will be those who are global and open with their innovation efforts, learning from pools of talent abroad and blending homegrown and international skills to hone innovation.

Wow. And into this mix comes the new issue of Teradata Magazine that focuses on – you guessed it – innovation. I hope you’ll all read the magazine. It’s full of provocative and thought-filled articles. It’s available online at http://www.teradata.com/tdmo/.

For me, there are three things that illustrate Teradata’s enduring commitment to innovation. One fits the currently fashionable notion of disruption. We were the original disruptors in analytics with massively parallel processing.

Second, we were the first to use “active data warehousing” to refer to near-real-time analytics that bring business intelligence tools to the front lines of business, from the strategic to the operational. We were way ahead of the pack on this.

Now, Teradata has innovated again with the launch of the Teradata Accelerate packages. As Chris Preimesberger wrote in eWeek on November 18, “Data warehouses are the aircraft carriers of the data storage world. It takes time to acquire, build, stock, launch and deploy a data warehouse. However, Teradata is challenging this notion with Accelerate, a customized, bundled package of hardware, software and services that can enable companies to rapidly deploy a data warehouse.”

Teradata Accelerate packages are low cost, quick time-to-value and easy one-stop shopping for data warehousing, opening Teradata’s promise to all.

Visit http://teradata.com/Accelerate for more information.

Now that’s innovation anyone can love.

Seeing Is Believing

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

As Teradata's CMO, I realize I can probably wrap my arms around the technical aspects of data warehousing (DW) more easily than CMOs in other industries. After all, concepts like scalability and ETL can be a lot to absorb, especially when you're focusing on market share and lead qualification.

But there are some DW tools that pertain to the marketer as much as to the analyst. In fact, a few are worth "going techie" for since they can make us marketers look really good. Take data visualization, where the ultimate goal is to communicate clearly and quickly. Sounds like marketing, doesn't it?

Data visualization makes it easy to see the big picture that's buried in complex data, with all of the relevant info blended to create a single dashboard or map. Just what we need to keep our efforts on the right track — or move forward on new tracks. And since 70% of our perceptions are visual, this tool helps us promote our ideas across the organization. You get the picture.

Visualization tools also give us display choices so we can spot trends and determine the most actionable conclusions. In fact, they've been known to answer questions you haven't even thought to ask yet. Now that's powerful stuff.

Take this Tableau visualization, which analyzes revenue. The thickness of (as well as the label on) each bar represents the average order size for that segment of the business. If you look at the grand total, you can see that most sales are from accounts classified as new business but that the largest orders tend to come from add-on business. With such an analysis of data from a CRM system, management can determine next action steps and explain it as well.

click to enlarge

Data visualization gurus Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge and Edward Tufte (the "da Vinci of Data") are influencing data warehousing and marketing with advances in this field. Teradata is fortunate that some of our partners are keeping us at the top of the hot visualization space, which includes our traditional Enterprise BI partners as well as independent visualization companies. These partners include SAS, SAP's Business Objects, Oracle, MicroStrategy, Microsoft, and IBM's Cognos as well as Tibco's Spotfire, Tableau Software, BIS2, Bally Technologies and ADVIZOR Solutions.

I'll keep you posted as this eye-opening technology continues to make its mark on our field.

Using Analytics in Tough Times: Quiet action starts the fight against doom and gloom

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Now, I can't make any promises and wouldn't dream of offering any forecasts. But behind all those gloom-and-doom headlines and talk show rants, there's another set of forces at work. It's pretty quiet right now, but it's there, and it's growing.

A recent Wall Street Journal headline shrieked about risk models failing "to pass real-world tests." The article says that the models didn't factor in some critical, detailed information and so, failed to help in today's reality.

Yet, a Teradata customer — a major bank — has quietly improved its risk management. The bank used to have data scattered across multiple silos and could only report its risk position with 75% accuracy. Since integrating its data and implementing a Teradata Enterprise Risk Management solution, its decision makers have a comprehensive view of risk exposure across all product lines and business units. This bank's managers now take action on risk factors knowing that their data is accurate.

On another front, the noise level is getting louder and louder as retailers gear up for what most seem to think will be a weak holiday shopping season.

Again, fairly quietly and effectively, some of our customers are using analytics running on Teradata to tightly manage their supply and demand chains, to prevent fraud and to make highly tailored offers to their customers ... all in order to keep ahead of their competitors.

In the B2B space, some pundits would have us believe that full-blown doom has hit and will be with us for months or, worse yet, years to come. Yet, another customer has been able to measure real revenue growth and customer retention lift from its use of a Teradata customer management solution that has paid for its investment more than 20x.

Sure, these are tough economic times and will probably get tougher. But if I look at the world through Teradata-orange-colored glasses, I see opportunity, not just crisis.

The Headlines Tell the Story - PARTNERS 2008

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

More than 160 journalists, analysts, bloggers and academicians from throughout the world were among the over 3,400 people who attended the Teradata PARTNERS Conference this year. These headlines – from articles and blogs that they wrote from the event – give a good overview of the PARTNERS 2008 story. Click on each headline to get the full article or blog. Taken together, these headlines alone tell the story. Read the articles and you will get a panoramic view of the energy, excitement and learning that filled each day. Hundreds of stories have been published around the world so far. These headlines give you some of those. They make for good reading. And there are more coming.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in WashingtonD.C. next year!

Data Warehousing Takes Center Stage

Teradata: Confident and Competitive

Teradata creates elite club for petabyte-plus data warehouse customers
'Petabyte Power Players' include eBay, Wal-Mart, Bank of America, Dell, unnamed bank

Teradata looking to high-tech sensors
Sensors the size of a grain of sand that cost less than a jellybean will be able to collect data, official says.

Teradata releases 50 petabyte data warehousing appliance

Teradata Eyes Rivals in Data Warehouse Space with New Appliance

Teradata Bows Petabyte-Scale Appliance, Faster Database
Extreme Data Appliance 1550 meets super-high-scale analysis, compliance and archival demands. Teradata 13 database virtualizes storage, speeds loading and boosts performance.

Teradata Bullish on SSDs

Teradata promises era of affordable petabyte processing with new product offerings

Teradata Partners — Finding Value in Data Warehousing

Teradata Partners — Getting Ready for Harry Potter

The WOW Factor – Day One at PARTNERS 2008

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

What a day! Over 3,000 people focused on the best of data warehousing all in one place, at the same time. Opening day of PARTNERS is always jam-packed, but yesterday was even more so. Customers began presenting their latest innovations using Teradata and we made several significant announcements.

Two things hit me as especially significant:

One was the start of my day, the inaugural ComputerWorld Enterprise Intelligence Awards, sponsored by Teradata. This morning, the top winners in each category were: Discover Financial Services for Integrated View of the Business, eBay for Excellence in BI and Analytics, Hallmark Cards for Customer Intelligence and Management, and Medco Health Solutions for Industry Innovation.

And with our significant announcements made from PARTNERS yesterday, including the industry-leading Teradata 13 database and the powerful new Teradata Extreme Data Appliance, I had a realization that kept growing in importance the more I thought about it during this busy day. It was the WOW factor for me this day: Teradata has announced more innovations in the one year since becoming independent than ever before.

WOW.

It’s PARTNERS Time …World’s Largest Data Warehousing and Analytics Conference

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Well, our annual Teradata PARTNERS is almost here, coming just after Teradata marks its one-year anniversary as an independent company. It has been such a great year and I thank all of our customers, partners, employees and friends who have made us so successful. Teradata is all about innovation and as I look at the line-up this year of folks speaking about their Teradata solutions, I am blown away. There are more than 200 sessions that will focus on our customers’ innovative practices, partnership stories, and executive challenges.

I was looking at the line-up of presentations by customers. It will be hard to decide this year. RBC, eBay and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China will give us updates on how their solutions have grown. Retailing leaders like METRO AG, Office Depot and JC Penney and leading manufacturers like Hershey and Freescale Semiconductor will surely draw crowds to learn from these leaders. Make sure you check out the Sabre Holdings, Travelocity and Harrah’s Entertainment sessions as they will highlight how they use Teradata to win against competitors. Other innovators – including AT&T Mobility and Meredith Corporation, WellPoint, Kaiser Permanente, and WebMD – will, I’m sure, have standing room only at their sessions.

I will be particularly interested in hearing Dan Ariely of MIT as he shares with us how people make decisions, the forces that shape decisions and what it all means for business innovation and strategy. And I definitely won’t miss Lance Armstrong’s talk about how to overcome challenges and the work it requires to be great. Can you believe he’s going back to the Tour? Impressive. I hope he’ll tell us more about that decision.

There’ll be a concert by the Goo Goo Dolls, who will no doubt sing their official Olympics song. We’ll build bicycles for donation to kids through the Andre Agassi Boys and Girls Club in Las Vegas. And, as part of our “Math Matters to Teradata” program, we’ll collect math-related school supplies that will also go to deserving kids in the area.

We’ll learn a lot, do some good…and we’ll have some fun, too…hope to see you there!

There They Go Again

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

There They Go Again – that’s what came to mind as I heard of the HP Oracle database machine about which Oracle’s database organization has been touting our demise for years; however, businesses have been choosing Teradata instead of Oracle for business intelligence and analytics, and we now have hundreds of happy customers who prefer Teradata over their OLTP database of choice.

Two years ago and again last year, HP bragged about its “Teradata killer” when it introduced Neoview and even put out press releases wrongly implying that they were replacing us with a few customers. That wasn’t happening and still isn’t.

Now these two behemoths have to join together to try to do what they’ve failed to accomplish on their own. Because we respect our competitors, we’ll look at the Oracle-HP machine very thoroughly and will have more to say soon.

For now, I have to say, there they go again. They were wrong before and we’ll prove them wrong again.

Spotlight on Innovation

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Innovation is a hot topic these days. That’s a good thing since it’s hard for many companies to continue to innovate in the midst of a difficult economy.

Consider just a few examples of the attention innovation is getting. One new book worries that innovation is dead and another hails disruption as the best source of innovation. Fortune magazine’s tech guru David Kirkpatrick was interviewed during the magazine’s Brainstorm conference in July. Asked what’s his brainstorm from the conference, he said it’s that customers are becoming the main source of innovation. “Every single person” talked about this, he said, and managing it can be “tempestuous.” In August, in one of his “Deal Maker” blogs, Vinnie Mirchandani was “staggered” when he learned that a tech company exec thinks innovation has lost meaning.

At Teradata, we believe in balance – leverage disruption and keep working with customers on what they need next. We work to keep our innovation and development engine consistently going by getting input from leading-edge customers and by leveraging disruption. We work with customers of all sizes and levels of sophistication on what they’ll be doing in 3, 5 or 10 years to help guide the next innovation.

Disruption for its own sake doesn’t have any staying power. Bringing greater value to customers does.

Becoming Data-Driven: Smaller Companies Let Their Success Do the Talking

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Why is it that – all evidence to the contrary – some people still insist that being data-driven is the exclusive province of large enterprises? Sure, industry giants are using data warehousing solutions to slice and dice their data. But that doesn’t mean that the technology is any less appropriate for small and midsize companies.

If being smaller means that organizations can withstand fewer body blows than companies with deep pockets, then making fast, smart decisions is that much more critical – especially in the current economy. Even tiny improvements in decision making velocity and effectiveness can help an organization succeed over its competition.

Compared with older systems that only collected data about what happened, today's data warehousing technology lets companies big and small analyze and understand why it happened, too. The best data warehousing appliances harness the power of leading-edge enterprise-class solutions, but they can be cost-justified within just months. We've seen the results firsthand: Teradata's clients are market leaders involved in data warehouse projects of all sizes and complexity.

So why does the correlation between data warehousing and large enterprises persist? Maybe it’s because with a Teradata system clever small and midsize companies are quietly building their successes – improving operations and becoming more competitive. They aren’t looking for the kudos or the press coverage – they’re happy to gain the business benefits that naturally accrue from making smarter decisions.

Competitor Claims: Some Suggestions for Journalists

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

It’s exciting to be in the data warehousing and analytics business. For Teradata, I’m delighted that customers and partners continue to express strong support for our platform family and I’m not surprised that competitors continue their squawking.

For example, a couple of competitors claim to be winning market share from Teradata. One said its win rate against Teradata is more than 50 percent. We dispute the claim, of course…what I don’t understand is why some media seem to accept claims without any substantiation. So, in a spirit of helping our journalist friends, I’d like to offer some suggestions for covering claims about wins and win rates.

First, ask tougher questions and ask for proof when vendors make claims about market share and win rates. Second, get a clear definition of win rate and what gets calculated as being in the “game.” Win rates are meaningless unless there is a clear definition. One vendor has been actively trying to sell into our accounts for about five years now and most of the time, they don’t have a product that fits customers' needs and aren't really considered. Is this counted in win-rate calculations? Many times, a vendor responds to an RFP as an invited vendor, but doesn't make the "short" list. Is this counted in the win-rate calculations? When multiple vendors are in the running, meaning it’s not a head-to-head competition, how is the win rate calculated?

Finally, here’s a third suggestion for journalists. During this past year, one competitor has suggested in its press releases, and journalists picked up as a fact, that it has won some major customers away from Teradata. In each case, however, those public announcements did not tell the whole story. The customers in fact continue to use Teradata and even expand their Teradata systems. So, ask the vendor to tell you exactly what they’ve won and ask the customer if they’re continuing with Teradata.

We respect all of our competitors – large and small – but many of their marketing claims just don't prove out. We welcome the competition from competitors as they've actually generated new RFP's for which Teradata, as the industry leader, is invited to participate. Consequently, the competitors have actually helped to expand opportunities. With our new Teradata 2500 data warehouse appliance for entry-level data warehousing, we're even more competitive in the market place.

It is indeed an exciting time to be in this market…an interesting market to cover…just be sure that you get all of the story

All in the Family

Darryl McDonald — 7/30/2009

Customers, prospects and analysts reacted very positively to the announcement of our new and expanded family of powerful analytical platforms. All agreed that leveraging our world-class Teradata 12.0 database with this new family is having a powerful effect on the data warehouse and analytics market.

One way to know you’re doing something right is when your competitors squawk the loudest.

The fact is that we’ve opened new opportunities for our customers and ourselves with this platform family announcement. Briefly, the new family includes: the Teradata 550 SMP, for departmental data warehousing; the Teradata 2500, for entry-level enterprise data warehousing; and the Teradata 5550 for active enterprise data warehousing.

What does the family do for customers? We have extended the range of solutions we deliver to our customers so they can compete more effectively and win. Our new family of platforms addresses customer requirements ranging from departmental to entry-level to active enterprise data warehouses. We meet their business needs today as we put them on the path to a full enterprise data warehouse. What’s more, we deliver fully integrated, total solutions including data integration, software and consulting – not just a box.

Take the financial services industry, for example. Many companies may take a departmental or line-of-business view on applications such as credit risk for the mortgage or credit card business. This is where a 550 fits in.

As they add more lines of business or risk types, like market and operation risk, and try to meet compliance mandates, like Basel II, they would migrate to a 2500 entry-level enterprise data warehouse.

Once they have an enterprise risk platform and want to add customer and marketing information to gain better visibility into the value of customers, they would then migrate to a 5550 Enterprise Data Warehouse. The combination of these data types delivers a 360-degree view of the customer, their profitability and risk profile so organizations can make better decisions and get a higher return and profit from each of their customers.

For Teradata, the family does two important things: First, it gives us a lower entry-level platform for companies that are just starting down the path to building an enterprise data warehouse. Second, the family expands our opportunities within our existing accounts.

So whether customers take the direct or indirect path to an enterprise data warehouse, with Teradata, we can protect their investment along the way.

I guess it’s not surprising that competitors are squawking. Music to my ears.