 Everyone's rethinking data and the cloud, especially traditional vendors like Microsoft. It's entire business model is evolving for today's modern and mobile era, reiterated with the preview launch of Microsoft Power BI for Office 365. Power BI is a DIY approach to data big and small, and while IT will setup the data sources, at least many of them, the analytics will be done by users on their own machines. In every key area, Microsoft Power BI fails to break new ground, but in a good way, writes Editor at Large David Coursey. Power BI works atop Microsoft Excel, benefitting from a user interface everyone already knows and most at least tolerate. How does the saying go? Customer retention is twice as easy as finding new customers. Microsoft is serving its current users a way to work with Big Data. On the topic of Big Data, SiliconANGLE Assistant Editor Kyt Dotson launched a new series this week called City of Paradigm, using sci-fi shorts to depict the DevOps impact on real life scenarios. This week's excerpt highlighted a future where smart building, smart homes, sensors are the norm. Advanced analytics and real-time opportunities that improve both the user and enterprise sides of data are fast approaching. Hewlett-Packard is also shifting its strategy around emerging trends, making a splash in the news this week with a leaked memo that showed HP is reassigning Bethany Mayer, who was heading up HP Networking, to a new role as SVP/GM of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Mayer is a #techathlete that HP doesn't want to lose, revamping its Cloud department with fresh leadership. -Kristen Nicole Martin, Senior Managing Editor | |  What Power BI says about the future of cloud apps Microsoft’s Power BI for Office 365 has launched out of preview mode and gives us an idea of how Redmond looks at data analytics, visualization, user interface and enterprise licensing in creating what it hopes will be business intelligence for the masses. This is a key step in making Big Data a mass-market phenomena, at least in enterprises, and further drives what used to be IT work out to the trenches. Working with Excel, Power BI gives reasonably bright users the ability to model and analyze their data and query large datasets with complex natural-language queries. |  HP puts senior execs in Cloud group : Bethany Mayer in charge According the leaked memo, Hewlett-Packard is reassigning Bethany Mayer, who was heading up HP Networking, to a new role as SVP/GM of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). HP is putting lots of bets on the cloud and this move highlights that. In addition it seems the old enterprise DNA is being flushed with a new focus on keeping their mature markets from falling in share. The growth opportunity is in new markets – cloud and mobile. The consumerization of IT, or as HP calls it the New Style of IT. -
- |  Confirmed: Fusion-io founders back with a vengeance : bag total of $63M for stealth startup Fusion-io co-founders David Flynn and Rick White have not been idle since their controversial departure from the storage drive maker last May. Four months after handing over the reins to new CEO Shane Robison, the executives secured $50 million for their next venture, an emerging provider of software-defined storage (SDS) solutions called Primary Data. $63 million is a lot of cabbage for a new start-up. | |  City of Paradigm: The Internet of Things In the excerpt from The City of Paradigm a novel by Kyt Dotson, Stephen Wolfe finds himself elected to the position of Director of Big Data and Urban Information Analysis—a government position making him the head of the City of Paradigm Bureau of Urban Information Analysis. The City of Paradigm, California may not be a real place–but smart buildings, smart houses, and sensors as part of infrastructure may not be that far off into the future. The Internet of Things suggests that a lot of little things, each playing their part can coalesce into an understandable whole.
- |  Could Apple’s next big product be the iCar?
According to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, Apple is now looking into entering the automotive and health care markets. Apple’s head of merger and acquisitions chief, Adrian Perica, was very busy spearheading the company’s acquisition of various companies last year, and is said to have secretly met with Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors. Apple isn't stopping there. With its often rumored wearable devices like the iWatch, home automation features tied in with the Apple TV and producing not just Quantified Self trackers, but something that can help in the early detection of heart attacks. |  The future of Big Data : Open source v. proprietary | #BigDataSV In last week’s companion to SiliconANGLE’s #BigDataNYC, theCUBE broadcast live from Silicon Valley, highlighting the ongoing maturity of Big Data for 2014 and beyond. John Furrier welcomed theCUBE alumni Bruno Aziza and Rishi Yadev for one of the more interesting conversations centering on the method and business model that will further advance the adoption of Big Data in the Enterprise. Despite their best arguments, it is SiliconANGLE's stance that companies like Yadev and Aziza's are fighting a losing battle against open source. | | |
