Category Archives: Technology

High Stakes: Businesses Make Big Data Bets

Big data has exploded into the mainstream, and very soon harnessing the power of information won’t just be a matter of profitability, but of survival. Microsoft has the tools to help businesses survive and thrive in the dawning age of big data.

REDMOND, Wash. – Feb. 13, 2013 – For the first time in history, it’s going to start raining information.

Hallelujah or headache? For businesses, it’s all about being ready to ride this perfect storm of big data – and their understanding of what’s at stake. (more…)

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Caching In: How Some Organizations Are Using Big Data to Change the Way They Do Business

As big data access shifts to the masses, The Weather Company and other top global companies are showing the world how it’s done.

REDMOND, Wash. Feb. 12, 2012 —Big data is changing the way organizations do business, make discoveries, and interact with each other. In fact, pundits are predicting that 2013 will be the year organizations across a range of industries begin implementing big data strategies, or face obsolescence. As David Selinger wrote in a recent article on Forbes online: “If executives don’t find a way to trap, tame, and train their data monsters, they’ll be extinct in two years—fossils who’ve missed the new world order.”

Microsoft believes that big data has the power to drive practical and theoretical insights that have eluded people to date. In the past, high costs and technology limitations have constrained access to data storage infrastructure and the tools needed to manage and analyze large quantities of data. This is finally starting to change. (more…)

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Social Network Use Reflects East-West Disparity

The stark contrast between America’s “me-first” culture and the “collective-good” mentality in China is reflected in the two countries’ use of social networking sites, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar.

U.S. citizens spend more time on the networking sites, consider them to be more important and have more “friends” on the sites, the research found. The most popular social networking site in the United States is Facebook; in China, two of the most popular sites are RenRen and Qzone. (more…)

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Customers Rapidly Adopting Big Data Solutions — Driven By Marketing, Sales and More — Reports New Microsoft Research

New findings headline weeklong series on the Microsoft News Center showcasing big data customers, industry perspectives, solutions and more.

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 11, 2013 — More than 75 percent of midsize to large businesses are implementing big data-related solutions within the next 12 months — with customer care, marketing and sales departments increasingly driving demand, according to new Microsoft Corp. research released today. (more…)

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Digitization with Google

Books from the Michigan State University Libraries will soon be digitized by Google to become part of the Google Books website.

Google Books has digitized millions of titles from university libraries and indexed the contents so users can search across the entire set. MSU’s participation is part of Google’s contract with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a consortium of Midwestern universities. (more…)

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