“Above the Trend Line” – Your Industry Rumor Central for 3/29/2016

Above the Trend Line: machine learning industry rumor central, is a recurring feature of insideAI News. In this column, we present a variety of short time-critical news items such as people movements, funding news, financial results, industry alignments, rumors and general scuttlebutt floating around the big data, data science and machine learning industries including behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious buzz. Our intent is to provide our readers a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help keep you abreast of this fast-paced ecosystem. We’re working hard on your behalf with our extensive vendor network to give you all the latest happenings. Heard of something yourself? Tell us! Just e-mail me at: daniel@insideAINews.com.  Be sure to Tweet Above the Trend Line articles using the hashtag: #abovethetrendline.

A paramount industry observation by Blazegraph,a major player in the GraphDB arena, points out that graphic analysis exploded 5-fold in the last 2 years, and Forrester predicts this will be used by 25% of enterprises by 2017. And increasingly, the billion+ graphs are becoming more common, especially as global collaboration/research projects and machine learning take off … Just heard that Bright Computing, a leading independent provider of cluster and cloud management software for high performance computing (HPC) clusters, big data clusters, and OpenStack clouds, revealed that Dan Kuczkowski has been appointed Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Dan will play a key role in shaping and steering the sales team to drive aggressive growth. Leading both direct and indirect sales, Dan will focus on broadening Bright Computing’s footprint across the clustered and cloud-based IT infrastructures of leading companies, government agencies, and academic institutions … In some stirring use case news, SAP announced that SWISS PROPERTY, a real estate development company, has gone live with the SAP S/4 HANA Enterprise Management solution in just two months. SWISS PROPERTY will be using S/4 HANA to manage the entire building life cycle — from finding and procuring land, through architectural design, production, and assembly, to the ongoing management and optimization of the properties – to create the foundation for further innovation and competitive differentiation in the construction industry. In October 2015, it was announced that SAP had exceeded 1,300 customers for SAP S/4 HANA since its launch in February 2015 … In more people news, we learned that Guavus, Inc., a leading provider of big data analytics applications for operational intelligence, indicated that Roger Brooks has joined the company as Chief Scientist. Dr. Brooks is a leading expert in information analytics based on large-scale machine learning and advancing the use of data mining to help businesses strengthen IT operations, engineer new products, optimize marketing and deliver real-time personalized content … Another industry alignment with Dodge Data & Analytics, a leading provider of subscription-based intelligence and analytics to the North American construction industry, announced the acquisition of Vancouver, BC-based data management firm Ingenium Technologies Corporation, a proven technology provider to the ENR Top 400. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Integration of Ingenium’s ConstructionPoints family of products into the Dodge product portfolio will be immediate, as the two companies have worked closely together for sixteen years … Meanwhile, we have a commentary about industry funding by Sisense CEO Amir Orad — “Despite the general lag in VC funding, the Business Intelligence market stands out to VCs as an emerging space to pay attention to – in a big way. Domo’s recent funding, as well as Sisense’s $50M round and Looker’s $48M round in Q1 of 2016 – are quantifiable proof that the $33B BI market is booming with potential. As data continues to explode in both the amount of data, and the amount of data sources, investors are putting their confidence behind BI companies that are simplifying the complexity that comes with analyzing large, disparate data sets. We’re also seeing a larger market shift toward self-service analytics solutions that remove IT from the equation — putting powerful, real–time analytics into the hands of business users. Gartner’s recent Magic Quadrant further validates this trend, with an updated ranking that includes companies, such as Sisense and Domo, which remove the need for IT’s involvement to prep and analyze complex data. As the market continues to evolve, we’ll see more companies adopt the self–service approach to analytics, enabling everyday business users to manage, analyze and visualize large data sets from multiple sources” … In another industry alignment, Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA), a global leader in solutions and services that provide real-time visibility into organizations’ assets, people and transactions, announced that it has teamed up with SAP to offer connectivity between Zebra’s Zatar Internet of Things (IoT) Cloud Service and SAP HANA® Cloud Platform. The connectivity between the two cloud-based solutions was built by ThingTheNet GmbH, a partner of both companies in Germany, and the resulting connector is now available at store.sap.com … Industry funding continues at a fast clip with Zaloni, the data lake company, announcing that it has closed $7.5 million in Series A financing led by Sierra Ventures, with participation from Baird Capital. The company, which has been experiencing 100% year over year growth from its data lake management solutions, will use the proceeds to fund further expansion of the Zaloni software suite, sales and marketing, research and development, and international expansion. As part of the transaction, Mark Fernandes, Managing Director of Sierra Ventures, will join Zaloni’s Board of Directors … and also … SOASTA adds another $30 million in capital to its war chest. Led by Tennenbaum Capital, along with existing investors Canaan Venture Partners, Pelion Venture Partners and Formative Ventures, the new round of funding provides additional growth capital to continue to drive leadership in the Digital Performance Management (DPM) space … In more people news, Bright Computing, a leading independent provider of management software for high performance computing (HPC) clusters, big data clusters, and OpenStack clouds, announced today that Bill Wagner has been  appointed as its Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. As Bright Computing’s CEO, Bill succeeds Matthijs van Leeuwen, who founded the  company and served as its CEO since 2009. Mr. Van Leeuwen will remain with Bright Computing as Chief Strategy Officer and board member …  Meanwhile, rumor has it that Dell Boomi AtomSphere® has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the “Leaders” quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service. Dell Boomi placed furthest in completeness of vision and highest in ability to execute for the second time in three years.

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