Retailers of electronics and appliances in the U.S. are expected to grow sales of those products by $953 million in June, July and August, according to an analytics-based forecast produced by IBM.  The forecast represents a four percent increase compared with the same period last year.

The IBM forecast is produced using statistical and analytical software to evaluate both the long-term sales trend and seasonal peaks.  IBM consultants use these predictive techniques to help clients improve performance by addressing complex issues of supply and demand.  These techniques also aid clients in planning product mix, new store locations, staffing and advertising spend...

SAP CTO and Member of Executive Board Vishal Sikka and Supervisory Board Chairman Hasso Plattner Reveal In-Memory Breakthroughs, Proclaim Disk-Free Future of “Supercharged” Transactional, Analytical and Predictive Applications
 

Reinforcing the messages to customers delivered by SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe in their keynotes at SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP CTO and Member of Executive Board Vishal Sikka and SAP co-founder and Supervisory Board Chairman Hasso Plattner told audiences how SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) aims to eliminate the divide between transactional and analytical applications with in-memory technology. At SAPPHIRE NOW, held simultaneously in Frankfurt, Germany and Orlando, Florida, May 17-19, 2010, the high-tech visionaries highlighted the next wave of real real-time computing technologies that will enable new applications, dramatically increase the pervasive reach of SAP systems across mobile devices and empower people from the shop-floor to the boardroom.

IBM will manage back office processes for the company's Life and Pension Insurance unit

SulAmerica has signed a new agreement with IBM Brazil to manage its business processes for the company's Life and Pension Insurance unit. IBM (NYSE: IBM) will be responsible for the back office activities of both areas, including issuing policies, registration updates, document transfers and claim management. The 12-year agreement signed in April 2010 is valued at more than $200 million.

The agreement also covers information technology (IT) infrastructure services, maintenance of legacy applications, construction of a dedicated service center in the city of Barueri and the hiring of professionals currently allocated to the insurance company's Life and Pension operations. In order to maintain service continuity, IBM Brazil will also support the management of current applications.

New Partnership Allows Customers to Easily Deliver WebFOCUS BI With 1010data's Hosted Enterprise Data Warehouse

Information Builders, an independent leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced a new partnership with 1010data, providers of high-performance, hosted data warehouse solutions. This partnership links Information Builders' popularWebFOCUS analytics solutions to 1010data's namesake hosted database, improving customer analytics performance and lowering data warehousing costs.

 Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, today reported that it granted equity awards under its 2006 Inducement Equity Incentive Plan (the "Plan") to new employees of salesforce.com in connection with its previously announced acquisition of Jigsaw Data Corporation (“Jigsaw”). The Plan was adopted by the Board of Directors originally in May 2006 in accordance with New York Stock Exchange Rule 303A.08. 

Leading Analyst Documents Dramatic Cost Savings with Pentaho Open Source BI

Pentaho Corporation, the open source business intelligence (BI) leader, today announced a new analyst report by Mark Madsen, president of Third Nature, that shows how firms are saving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars with open source BI. The report titled, Lowering the Cost of Business Intelligence With Open Source, digs deep to answer the question whether commercial open source BI matters when it comes to lowering software license and support costs? How real are cost savings? How much does BI software and ongoing support actually cost? The report pulled real numbers from public sources and direct from the vendors revealing and comparing BI software and support costs for Pentaho, IBM (Cognos), MicroStrategy, Oracle and SAP (Business Objects). The report is available for download by visitingwww.pentaho.com/lower_bi_costs.

Pentaho Corporation, the open source business intelligence (BI) leader, today announced the availability of a new Pentaho plug-in bringing interactive analytics to Apple iPad business users. More than 1 million iPad's have already been sold in the U.S., and it is increasingly being adopted by demanding and mobile professionals world-wide.

Pentaho provide to these users an easy and intuitive way to create new analytical reports from scratch, as well as navigate and access existing business intelligence information from the iPad. The Pentaho plug-in for the iPad is available for download at www.pentaho.com/iPad..

MicroStrategy, a leading worldwide provider of Business Intelligence software, today announced that Aristocrat Technologies has selected MicroStrategy’s business intelligence platform to provide enhanced reporting and data analysis for its Oasis 360™ casino management system.

Aristocrat Technologies, a subsidiary of Aristocrat Leisure Limited, offers the most widely-used casino management system in North America, serving more than 270 casinos..