Last week I was in Bucharest and Ljubljana, but before I headed to the airport on Monday I recorded a webinar – doubtless I’ll be blowing my own brass section about how and when you can watch it, when I know that.  Usually for webinars, as for other presentations, I have my own slide deck, which is almost always a slight variation of a previous one, but on this occasion I was using a pre-set deck because I was a late substitute for the planned speaker.  The deck, as usual, included a bunch of Netezza customer stories, including one I wasn’t familiar so I had some reading to do over the weekend to get acquainted with it.  Read More

In my previous post, I defined a framework by which to evaluate the appliance claims of data warehouse and analytic vendors. These truisms, which I have come to refer to as the golden rules of appliances are: Read More

When you buy something these days, chances are you do some online research to see how the competition stacks up and then you "try before you buy." You find as much information as you can about a new appliance or product and you try it out before committing to anything. With that in mind, Netezza has produced a series of videos to help you better understand our "secret sauce" – and why our appliance-based approach to data warehouse analytics differs in basic and important ways from that of Oracle Exadata. The differences between the two are so stark, in fact – in terms of simplicity, speed, scaleablity and smarts - that Netezza is able to introduce our customers to entirely new ways of thinking about data analytics and the ways they do business. Read More

This is what greeted me on my return from the IBM Information On Demand show in Las Vegas, like an early “Trick or Treat” gift on the cusp of Halloween. On Thursday, our good friends at Oracle had launched a new ad in their “traditional spot” at the bottom of page one of the Wall Street Journal (in photo at right). And on catching the ad in the morning, our receptionist Maureen had had the great good sense not to pollute our lobby by putting the paper out in the waiting area. And both Netezza and Teradata figured prominently in the ad. “Stunning,” it said. “Wiped the floor,” it said. “300x faster,” it said. And all from a report by the reputable Wall Street firm, Piper Jaffray. Now exactly what was all this about? It wasn’t a question of “if” our friends from Redwood Shores were stretching the truth, but exactly “how.” Read More