"So Good, So Good!"
"Where it began,
I can't begin to knowin'
But then I know it's growing strong"Was in the spring
And spring became the summer
Who'd have believed you'd come along."Hands, touchin' hands
Reachin' out, touchin' me touchin' you"Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would."
- Neil Diamond, lyrics from "Sweet Caroline", 1973
After a long, self-imposed quiet period hiatus, "Thoughts from..." is officially back on the air. We've been away for quite some time and in our absence, as you may have noticed, Netezza (ticker symbol: NZ) enjoyed a successful initial public offering on the NYSE Arca exchange back on the 19th of July. More recently, Netezza has just come off four major successes, including its 3rd annual International Netezza User Conference sessions as well as the recent launches of the NPS® Release 4.0 system software, the redefined & broadened role of analytic appliances and the Netezza Developer Network (NDN). In coming days I'll discuss the strengths and benefits of release 4.0, Netezza's streaming analytic™ appliances and the NDN, but in this and the next one or two postings, I'll concentrate specifically on the highlights from the 2007 User Conference.
Oh, and in case I forget to mention it, we are in a bit of a celebratory mood around Netezza headquarters these days as a result of the Boston Red Sox' return as champions of baseball a few days ago. Since Sunday evening, there's been nearly wall-to-wall Red Sox news and parade coverage around here in the local media, interspersed with the occasional news about the New England Patriots. If you were wondering about the title of this posting and the opening quote, perhaps this YouTube video I found online will help: Opening Day at Fenway Park, April 2007. "Sweet Caroline" has become as much a good luck charm/tradition in the middle of the 8th inning at Fenway Park as "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is at every park during the '7th inning stretch'.
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There were over 500 customer, partner, prospect and analyst attendees at this year's conference (about 50% growth over the 2006), spending 2 1/2 information-packed days, learning, sharing of ideas, networking and "gaming" with us in the glorious 'Indian Summer' sunshine of late-September in Boston.
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Day 1: Monday, 24th September Catherine discussed the growing global nature of NYSE's business along with the demands this globalization of exchange markets is putting on business intelligence and near real time analytics in her business. Through acquisition, partnership and organic growth, the NYSE has demonstrated significant market expansion over the past several years and their strong movement into the markets has ratcheted up their need for robust, high-performance business analytics on a global basis. She also spoke of Netezza's listing as the first technology company on NYSE Arca exchange as another sign of the increasingly robust actions NYSE has taken to bring innovative, high-tech companies into their trading platforms.
The event kicked off with a "Welcome" message from Netezza CEO & Co-founder, Jit Saxena, followed by two strong keynote speakers:
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Geoffrey put the primary themes of his recent book, Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution into the framework of technology companies in his talk, entitled, "Business Network Transformation: The Next Big Challenge for IT". His discussion included the importance of understanding the difference between core- and context-level capabilities across a business' domain of goods and services and need to continue to innovate at the core while working within a broader business network to deliver on the context. Furthermore, he told the audience of 500 that it is encumbent on corporate leadership to understand that over time, everything that is "core" eventually becomes "context" and neutralized so the engine of innovation cannot sit idle; continued focus on differentiated innovation is key. "It's crucial," he said, "for companies to focus on the core to invent new, differentiated offerings and then to deploy that differentiation at scale."
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I'll be coming back to Geoffrey's keynote presentation with a posting containing some additional reflections on some of his key points, particularly as they pertain to analytic appliances and Netezza, specifically. For now let's just say that he got the conference off to an outstanding, spot-on start for the evening, followed by noshes, drinks and networking 'by the boatload' at the Reception/Partner Pavilion just outside the main hall.
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My next posting will cover the "core" of the conference - days two and three - with some of the highlights from the more than 30 Netezza, guest, customer and partner presentations that were covered.
