Blogs
Jim Baum
Former CEO
Former president & CEO of IBM Netezza, Jim Baum has a unique perspective on the course IBM Netezza is charting and on the pulse of the industry. His blog will share his insights and opinions as we move towards an intelligent economy.
Enzee Universe 2011: From Boston to Mainstream
June 20, 2011
Today I’m blogging from Enzee Universe, Netezza’s seventh annual user conference, and want to share the latest news from the show.
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Big Data. Big Impact.
March 25, 2011
I had the honor this week of speaking with Om Malik of GigaOm on stage at the Structure: Big Data event in New York City. This was a first of its kind event, bringing together an incredibly interesting group of entrepreneurs, enterprises, industry luminaries, investors and press to discuss the state of the “Big Data” revolution that manifests itself throughout the industry. I must say, I feel “vindicated” by all this activity. I have been talking for years about “category convergence”, suggesting the convergence of business analytics, data management, search, data warehousing, ETL, text analytics, data protection, and a few other “categories” as necessary to create the business value we all expect from these technologies.
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Netezza Performance at IBM Scale: The Power of Simplicity
December 16, 2010
"Easy to use" is a critical differentiator when it comes to technology. Think about your television remote, your camera and your home computer. If it’s unnecessarily complicated, chances are you aren’t going to be happy. You are less likely to use the device or appliance – and it will soon be collecting dust in the corner.
New technologies are always more useful when they are easy to set up, understand and actually use. Why should people who buy data warehouse analytics systems for enterprises settle for anything less?
Netezza and IBM coming together makes sense for this very reason. High-performance analytics that are easier to set up and use achieves the kind of “elegant simplicity” that respects you and your team’s time and intelligence.
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Focusing on Excellence at Netezza
November 1, 2010
High-performance business analytics were the talk of the town at the IBM 2010 Information on Demand Conference in Las Vegas last week.
This year’s event attracted over 9,000 attendees from all over the world. Each came to participate in a wide variety of activities, presentations, and educational sessions put on by IBM and their partners.
Many people stopped by Netezza’s booth at this year’s conference. It’s a good feeling when your company’s sweet spot – in our case, scalable, high-performance analytics – dovetails so well with what the buzz is about. Next-generation analytics were a hot topic, probably because there are so many examples of enterprises achieving incredible, eye-popping results with the actionable information they glean from them.
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Netezza Customers Show the Power of Data Analytics
September 29, 2010
Suddenly, everybody seems to be talking about high-performance business analytics, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. The power of high-performance analytics is no longer confined to a handful of people at the top of an organization or constrained by technical walls and roadblocks. Analytics are fundamentally changing the way people across the enterprise are solving problems and uncovering opportunities.
As you have probably heard by now, IBM and Netezza announced on September 20, 2010 that the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Netezza.
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Netezza and Data Analytics as a Gateway to the Intelligent Economy
August 3, 2010
The "Intelligent Economy" is much more than a trendy buzz phrase or the name of a business school seminar.
It's the new reality for enterprises today.
The Intelligent Economy is about fundamentally changing the way we view our businesses and our customers, about inviting change when we decide change is needed – but also about recognizing what we do that makes sense and valuing it accordingly.
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Boston Globe Names Netezza Top 100 Massachusetts Company!
May 20, 2010
It’s a great honor after just two full years as a public company to be recognized in the Boston Globe Top 100 list. Making the list after a most difficult economic downturn is not only something that all of us at Netezza are proud of but it’s a testament to the tremendous support we receive from our customers, our partners, our investors, and our employees.
To be highlighted amongst the ranks of some of Massachusetts largest, most successful, and most important companies, including EMC, Genzyme and our customer TJX, is truly special. Given all the great technology companies in Massachusetts, to be chosen as one of only 19 companies categorized as “technology” by the Globe is exciting.
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Smarter Planet or Smarter Computers?
May 18, 2010
There’s so much happening in the world of analytics, business intelligence, and data management that, as the CEO of one of the more exciting companies in this space, I find it impossible not to comment. You can expect to hear from me on a regular basis as I share my personal views on this rapidly changing market and the technologies and business solutions that are driving it.
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This Past Year and the One Ahead of Us
May 18, 2010
Our annual reports were mailed out last week. Writing the letter for the report gave me a good opportunity to reflect on this past year and the one ahead of us.
Fiscal year 2010 was a defining moment for Netezza. Against a challenging economic backdrop, we successfully launched the Netezza® TwinFin™ appliance – our most significant product line introduction to date. We dramatically extended our price/performance and simplicity advantage, reminding the industry of the impact we’ve had in our brief history. We developed significant new distribution channels, including NEC in the fast-growing Asian markets, and we held our largest user conference ever. Unlike many companies in our space, we continued to invest in our products and our people to strongly position Netezza for the anticipated economic recovery. We ended the fiscal year better positioned than ever and while we remain cautious about the economy, we can’t help but be excited by the opportunities that lie ahead.
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