WHAT WE'RE READING
The Investing Edge
of Enterprise IT
Mar
2013
Selling Data Insights vs. Tools? Let’s Connect
I have written a number of times about the massive potential that resides in extracting insight from data. Leveraging new database, storage, parallel processing and cloud infrastructure, we can now get to these insights at cost levels and in timeframes that can impact decision making at very regular intervals and in major ways. This was just not possible a few
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Mar
2013
Announcing the Ascent Storify Page
While our singular focus at Ascent is enterprise IT, our portfolio spans a wide range of tech subcategories: Software & SaaS, Data & Analytics, Cloud Business Services, Mobility & Communications, Financial Services & Transaction Technology, and Security & Compliance. Each sector witnesses regular news and innovation, and each has numerous compelling stories. To help facilitate telling those stories, we’ve created
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Jan
2013
Technology Drives Change at a Top Global Bank
Ascent strives to anticipate long-term technology trends within the enterprise that can change business for the better. Taking the long view means the technologies we identify can take years before their impact is felt at the enterprise level, so it’s encouraging to get a glimpse of emerging areas of technology that are already driving massive change at large companies. Recently
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Jan
2013
4.4 Million Big Data Jobs? Not So Fast
Gartner made headlines recently when it predicted big data would create 4.4 million jobs by 2015. The analyst firm opined that there’s not enough hired talent to meet the challenges of big data and finding opportunities to turn information into revenue. Gartner reasons that big data will accelerate growth in the global economy and create job opportunities. On the surface,
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Dec
2012
Infographic: ClickFox Finds Shoppers Get Better Customer Service Online
Last week Ascent portfolio company ClickFox published the below infographic, which shows two major trends at work simultaneously: how Big Data insights can illuminate consumer behavior and how retail is evolving from bricks-and-mortar to multi-channel commerce, which Ascent calls “More clicks, less bricks.” ClickFox leveraged more than 500 million consumer behaviors across their customer base to reveal that shoppers are
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Oct
2012
Big Data Still a Tough Nut to Crack
Last week, when I was at the Xconomy Future of Big Data event moderating a panel on analytics & data infrastructure, one of the speakers essentially said the term ‘Big Data’ is somewhat meaningless. He’s right, of course; there are too many important sub-categories for one overarching term to have any real meaning. He also made the point, which I
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Sep
2012
Ascent’s August: Big Data, SaaS Metrics, Entrepreneurial Advice and More
Our blog has been relatively quiet for the last month, but it’s not because we’ve stopped writing or taken a long vacation. We’ve been quite busy, actually, contributing articles to various publications throughout the month of August. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve written recently, in case you missed them: GigaOM: The Problem with SaaS Metrics (August 4th) I
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Jul
2012
Big Data: What’s Next?
Even before Governor Patrick announced the Massachusetts Big Data Initiative in May, the state had already established itself as the big data capital of the world. We have 12,000 people employed in the sector in more than 100 companies. We have big money flowing from venture capital ($350 million in 2011) to fund local startups offering new solutions. We are
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Jul
2012
ClickFox Named to ‘Greatest Industry-Disrupting Startups of 2012′ List
Forbes last week listed the “10 Greatest Industry-Disrupting Startups of 2012,” citing “amazing” companies rapidly transforming industries that affect our daily lives. It was nice to see one of our portfolio companies, ClickFox, recognized in the article. Ascent has seen extraordinary innovation, both within our portfolio and the broader market, from companies that create business value from source data that
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Jul
2012
Video: Terascala CEO Steve Butler Explains the Big Data Opportunity
One of the biggest opportunities in Enterprise IT these days in “Big Data,” but this opportunity is not without real challenges. Tackling these challenges requires innovation on many fronts. Processing massive sets of data requires powerful compute clusters, which much be complemented by equally powerful file storage systems. Terascala, a company we led the initial financing round for, has recently launched
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