Sylleptic » Uncategorized http://blog.markhopwood.com Mark Hopwood's blog Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:44:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 IBM buys Coremetrics http://blog.markhopwood.com/2010/06/21/ibm-buys-coremetrics/ http://blog.markhopwood.com/2010/06/21/ibm-buys-coremetrics/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:46:26 +0000 mark http://blog.markhopwood.com/?p=459 IBM have bought Coremetrics, a major vendor of hosted analytics services. Since I’ve been implementing eCommerce sites, Coremetrics has been one of the few serious alternatives to the (free) Google Analytics service that most people use, and it’s now going to join the IBM world. The competition in the analytics space is now dominated by big Internet companies:

  • Adobe own Omniture
  • Yahoo own IndexTools
  • Google owns Google Analytics (which used to be called Urchin)

And now IBM own Omniture. Webtrends remains independent, but it’s telling that these major companies have decided they need to own serious, serious analytics offerings. Data is key to CRM, to site personalisation, to content optimisation, to so many things, so the company that has the best data has a strong competitive advantage.

Incidentally, this is an interesting turn in the evolution of the IBM product set as well. They’ve been acquiring companies for years and adding their capabilities to Websphere, and this is another one of those stories. What that has led to (according to the experts I speak to) is a rather loosely integrated set of software tools, that don’t have the same origin architecturally, and aren’t therefore all that consistent in user interface or structure. They do get assimilated to an extent, but obviously one doesn’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a company to rewrite its code, so the whole collection is a bit of a mixed bag. Very functionally rich, but quite hard to work with.

]]> http://blog.markhopwood.com/2010/06/21/ibm-buys-coremetrics/feed/ 0 Gerrard Street Lanterns http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/09/28/gerrard-street-lanterns/ http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/09/28/gerrard-street-lanterns/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:18:50 +0000 mark http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/09/28/gerrard-street-lanterns/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }


DSCN2010, originally uploaded by harkmopwood.

I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with this shot of the paper lanterns in London’s Chinatown.

]]> http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/09/28/gerrard-street-lanterns/feed/ 0 How much for the parking meter? http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/08/17/how-much-for-the-parking-meter/ http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/08/17/how-much-for-the-parking-meter/#comments Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:48:14 +0000 mark http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/08/17/how-much-for-the-parking-meter/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }


How much for the parking meter?, originally uploaded by harkmopwood.

Spotted near my house. The local charity shop seems to be trying to sell something that isn’t strictly theirs!

]]> http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/08/17/how-much-for-the-parking-meter/feed/ 0 Out and about in Notting Hill http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/07/10/out-and-about-in-notting-hill/ http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/07/10/out-and-about-in-notting-hill/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:11:53 +0000 mark http://blog.markhopwood.com/2009/07/10/out-and-about-in-notting-hill/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }


DSCN1657, originally uploaded by harkmopwood.

These people definitely win the prize for best front garden ornamentation. It’s lifesize and actually quite scary.

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