Arcplan announces the launch of arcplan Mobile, its BI solution for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android smartphones. With arcplan Mobile, users can create and distribute mobile BI applications quickly and device-independently to display detailed reports as well as interactive, animated dashboards. As a result, arcplan improves decision-making by enabling employees to have easy access to operational and financial data 24/7.

HP today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Vertica, a privately held, real-time analytics platform company based in Billerica, Mass. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition of Vertica will enhance HP capabilities for information optimization, adding sophisticated, real-time business analytics for large and complex sets of data in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Vertica’s platform helps customers analyze massive amounts of data simply, quickly and reliably, resulting in “just-in-time” business intelligence.

Gartner has positioned IBM Global Business Services in the leaders quadrant in its "Magic Quadrant for Global Business Intelligence and Performance Management Service Providers, February 2011" for its Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO) service line. In positioning vendors in its Magic Quadrant, Gartner evaluates completeness of vision and ability to execute.

IBM announced that Sequoia Hospital, based in Redwood City, Calif., has reduced its mortality rate in cardiac surgeries more than 50 percent through the use of IBM predictive analytics software by reducing risk and offering personalized patient care.

By analyzing a cardiac database of more than 10,000 patients, including demographics, types of surgeries, risk factors and outcomes, IBM predictive analytics informs doctors and recommends crucial pre- and postoperative procedures that reduce complications and extend the length and quality of patients' lives..

MicroStrategy announced an array of planned new products and technology enhancements at its 14th annual user conference, MicroStrategy World 2011, in Las Vegas.

IBM announced that eight universities are collaborating with IBM Researchers to advance the Question Answering (QA) technology behind the "Watson" computing system, which will compete against humans on the quiz show, Jeopardy!, airing February 14-16.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Texas at Austin, University of Southern California (USC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University at Albany (UAlbany), University of Trento (Italy), and University of Massachusetts Amherst join Carnegie Mellon University in working with IBM on the development of a first-of-its-kind open architecture that enables researchers to efficiently collaborate on underlying QA capabilities and then apply them to IBM’s Watson system..