IBM acquires Vivísimo

In 2004 while taking a seminar on search engines, which was part of my graduate studies, I learned about Vivísimo through Dr. Jaime Carbonell from Carnegie Mellon University. The things he said regarding its capabilities would let anyone believe that Vivísimo was actually better than Google.

Someone must have been paying attention to Vivísimo's evolution, and consequently, IBM has decided to purchase the enterprise search software company. With this acquisition IBM will boost big data analytics since the "software helps organizations access and analyse big data across the enterprise." According to Big Blue, the software excels in capturing and delivering quality information across the broadest range of data, no matter what format it is, or where it resides.

Back in 04, it seemed hard to believe that anything would come even close to 
competing with the search giant. The proof is that there have been many other projects which basically failed in their attempts. 

With this move, IBM will leverage the automation of data into business applications which will help to "better understand consumer behavior, manage customer churn and network performance, detect fraud in real-time, and perform data-intensive marketing campaigns." 

What we really liked in those days about Vivísimo was the way it produced results, dividing them  into different categories, which is a very helpful feature that Google did not provide. That is a big difference, and is also why they are proud to have a slogan such as "Information Optimized". 

Big Blue is expanding its partner ecosystem and has developed an enterprise big data platform that "allows clients  to manage, access, and gain intelligence on the full variety, velocity and volume of structured and unstructured data." This platform is based on Apache Hadoop, and "makes it easier for data-intensive applications to manage and analyze petabytes of big data by providing clients with an integrated approach to analytics", which helps them to turn information into insights for making better business decisions. It also provides clients with a broad array of advanced business analytics,  Hadoop-based analytics, stream computing, data warehousing, integration, visualization, systems management, governance, and consulting services.

I wrote about IBM´s Stream Computing in 2007 and since then there have been substantial  additional features and improvements to the company´s portfolio. Vivísimo is certainly one of the most important ones in terms of business analytics. 

Copyright Esteban Dobronsky 2012 © All Rights Reserved

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