Using material from item A and elsewher Essay Example for Free

Using material from item A and elsewher Essay Using material from item A and elsewhere, assess the view that the growth of religious fundamentalism is a reaction to globalisation As mentioned in item A ‘much has been written about the decline of religious beliefs and the secularisation of modern societies’ this states that the growth of fundamentalism represents a culture which tends to be a clash between the sacred an secular. Fundamentalism refers to ‘black and white’ thinking that opposes modernism or any sort of progressive beliefs about religion and social topics. Rejecting modern beliefs does not particularly make fundamentalist group violent. Whilst the item mentions ‘they reject modern interpretations o faith as having lost their ways because teachings have been watered down’ this supports the idea that fundamentalist groups tend to oppose anything that challenges their religious interpretations and opinions. There are various characteristics of fundamentalism; a sociologist Bruce indicates the fact that religious text are seen as perfect. Referring back to the item it suggests that ‘fundamentalism seek a return to a literal interpretation of their holy book and strict obedience to religious teachings’ this supports Bruce idea as such holy teaching must be read literally-be it the bible, quran or the torah for e.g. Homosexuality is seen to be a sin, and fundamentalist groups are strongly against this view. Although there are many holy teachings and beliefs, one consequence of this is that fundamentalism rejects religious pluralism; there can be but one literal truth. This reflects on the important implications for what school teach for e.g. in some Christian schools in USA, the obect the scientific explanations of creation. Another aspect of fundamentalist is there is a profound rejection of modern society. Living in the modern world is seen as problematic because of the variety of choice; including too much choice of religion, sexuality, lifestyle etc. As mentioned in the item ‘while fundamentalism may have views that differ greatly from the mainstream’ this supports the perception that fundamentalists reject the idea of choice and assert the value of tradition. Lastly, another characteristic is activism. Activism is strongly encouraged whereby fundamentalists are vocal in their struggle of good against evil. In their ways of active approach many fundamentalists resort to violence in bid to express both their hatred of modernity and the need for tradition values to return for all. Examples of extremist fundamentalism include the shooting of  Malala, bombing of abortion clinics, 9/11 etc, Islamic fundamentalists. Quoting from the item ‘some sociologists argue that one response to globalisation has been the growth of religious fundamentalists’ This was the central view of Giddens whom mentioned that globalisation has turned the whole planet earth into a ‘global village’ such that every point o n the planet is constant and lose touch with the rest of the world via electronic, satellite or telephone communication. This has had a huge impact on fundamentalism. There are clear examples of how globalisation has helped fundamentalist groups for e.g. Terrorist groups such al-qaeda have various websites to both communication members and grow in numbers. Depite the fact that fundamentalists are against modernity, they can be seen as hypocritical groups as they tend to use modern ways and technology to spread their views. Another clear example is represented by the Miss World beauty Pageant in Nigeria 2002 A ‘blasphemous’ article was published by a newspaper office suggesting the prophet Muhammed (pbuh) would have liked a Miss World Beauty Queen. This had raised riots by Muslim fundamentalists which claimed over 100 lives. Assessing the view that globalisation has a growing state of fundamentalists, if such articles were not published, would there be such a large scale of fundamentalist activity? However growth in fundamentalism can be due to other factors beside globalisation. A response to secularisation; once again Bruce identifies fundamentalism is caused by secularisation- he argues the decline in religion in modern society, combining the views of science and rationality, undermines traditional faiths which supports evidence from the item as it mentions ‘but fundamentalism seems to go against this trend’ and therefore this does not truly suggest that globalisation is the main reaction to the growth of fundamentalist groups. Almond et al agree secularisation and modernisation produces fundamentalist however implying that it is caused by facets such as low levels of education and high levels of inequality, economic problems displacement of people by war, and western resentment and hatred. This also ties in with such facts that fundamentalism is more likely to develop when; there is just one sacred perfect text which followers can argue, a religion must have a common enemy etc. Such aspects determine that globalisation is not the only factor, there are many other ways of fundamentalist groups increasing Another aspect may be certainty in a world of choice.  Fundamentalists groups tend to have an appeal to those who seek a moral anchor in a world of unlimited choice i.e. young people. Modernity creates a moral ambiguity- unaware of what to do and therefore leading to a profusion of choice and a lack of guidance. This verifies the idea that globalisation is not the only reason as to why fundamentalists is growing, but attracting people in other ways. Lastly, Karen Armstrongs view also supports the view that it is not due to globalization. She argues there is nothing in Islamic religion which tends to lead towards fundamentalist beliefs. Many Islamic leaders and followers are in favour of westernisation and modernisation. However her argument differs to many as she states that the west has tried to impose modernisation too rapidly in these countries and as a result, this has lead to mass resentment f the west by many Islamic populations in the world, thus encouraging Islamic fundamentalism. In conclusion, although gloablisation does play a major role as to why fundamentalist groups are promptly growing, we cannot assume this is the only way. Assessing the view of this, it does need to be taken into consideration that there are other elements which have an impact of fundamentalist groups vastly spreading such as secularisation, economic problems, certainty in a world of choice etc.

HUM History and Methods of Science Essay Example for Free

HUM History and Methods of Science Essay Social views and culture denoted scientist, in general, as individuals who exist different from the common society. This idea is mainly because scientists live with a strong conviction to their field and their reasoning is widely based on the empirical side of the environment they lived in. Because of this, scientist’ cultures and lifestyles are significantly affected with their governing philosophies and scientific principles. The aspect of communication is also included in the human cultures and philosophies that are affected by the conviction in the scientific world. In this idea, scientists do tend to communicate with their colleagues in a manner, which is significant based on their scientific principles. There communication is widely empirical in nature that they tend to express themselves and reason out through proving the validity of their statement in an empirical nature. Scientist’s opinions and ideas are always supported with factual and scientific proofs whenever they share it with their colleagues. Through this manner, scientist can and are ready to defend the validity of their statements whenever they communicate with their fellow scientist as they are all governed by their scientific principles and philosophies. Another common trend in the communication aspects of the scientist is that they tend to relate each of their opinions and ideas to other scientific concepts or factual events and phenomenon. This is probably habitual in nature, as their profession requires them to be open-minded and critical in their field. Their communication aspect is often critical and analytic in nature whenever they state something or dispute an idea. Hus, from this concepts and ideas, one can actually see that profession indeed such as the field of science can affect the human culture and personal behavior of an individual as with the case of the society of scientist. In this concept, the behavior of scientist towards their profession becomes habitual in nature thus affecting their innate and personal communication aspect in general.

Introduction To The Death Penalty Philosophy Essay

Introduction To The Death Penalty Philosophy Essay First of all, I would like to define the death penalty. Death penalty is when someone is put to death using different types of methods, for a serious crime such as murder, rape and drug dealing. It is also known as capital punishment, which comes from the Latin word capital meaning regarding the head. So therefore the most common way of capital punishment is hanging or decapitating. Although many countries refrain from using capital punishment, many countries still practice it. Countries like USA, Saudi Arabia, China, etc. still use capital punishment. In my opinion, I personally agree with capital punishment as it creates a sense of fear in the minds of the criminals, so he/she will think twice before committing a crime. It also makes the family of the victim get justice and they will be satisfied with the decision. If the prisoner is let go of, then he/she will commit the crime again without fearing for his/her death. Justice requires punishing the guilty even if only some can be p unished and sparing the innocent, even if all are not spared.  Ã‚  Morally, justice must always be preferred to equality.  Ã‚  Justice cannot ever permit sparing some guilty person, or punishing some innocent ones, for the sake of equality-because others have been spared or punished.  Ã‚  In practice, penalties could never be applied if we insisted that they can be inflicted on only  a guilty person unless we are able to make sure that they are equally applied to all other guilty persons.  Ã‚  Anyone familiar with the law enforcement knows that punishments can be inflicted only on an unavoidable shudder selection of the guilty  (Bedau, H., 1977). Irwin Isenberg (1977) said,  when you kill a man with premeditation, you do something different than stealing from him.  Ã‚  Ã‚  I favor the death penalty as a matter of justice and human dignity even apart from deterrence.  Ã‚  The penalty must be appropriate to the seriousness of the crime (p. 135). (http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/ornellaspaper.htm) Capital punishment varies from country to country, place to place. Some places it is just fast beheading or hanging, while in other places, it is full of torture and slow death. In religion, me being a Muslim, has to follow the Islamic Shariaa, which includes capital punishment and it is the choice of the victims family to give capital punishment to the criminal or not. But only for very serious crimes such as rape and murder. As stated in the Quran: If anyone kills a person- unless it be (a punishment) for murder or for spreading mischief in the land- it would be as if he/she has killed all of mankind. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind (Quran 5:32). Also, the death penalty could eradicate the problem of overflowing prisons. If they keep prisoners for life in their prisons, that would mean providing space for them to stay, food, shelter, clothing, etc. which would waste a lot of resources and prison space. The prisoners with life sentences could still kill other prisoners or guards while in prison and could even escape and go on a killing rampage throughout the place. And it is more than fair because the victim was an innocent human being and had his/her life taken away without having to have his/her last wish or write his/her will and was killed without any reason. So therefore, why should the criminal let to live after he/she has taken the life of an innocent human being? And not giving a death sentence to the criminal who has killed/raped another innocent human being will not be fair as this will show empathy towards the criminal which is wrong. It also prevents other inmates in prison serving life sentences from killing more people while in prison, because if there is no death penalty, then they would keep killing without having anything to lose. Also the crime rate will swell, as the criminal will not fear death penalty as there is no death penalty and they could go about killing people without having to fear th e capital punishment. On the other hand, Capital punishment means that they could be taking some innocent persons life without much evidence. For example, a person who is accused of doing a major crime, but has not really done it and cannot prove himself will be put to death for his crime. So it takes the lives of innocent people in rare cases and in old ages. But due to the technological advances, DNA testing and other ways of getting evidence can make certain that the accused is the real criminal. People also say that the death penalty is a barbaric act, but the criminal committing the crime does not think about barbaric acts while committing the crime. But keeping a person in prison could be more torturous and painful and it would be better for the prisoner to die rather than live in the prison, so then keeping the criminal in prison would be a much more severe punishment than the death penalty. Also people who have given up on life and wanting to suicide, can go on a killing ram page and then get sentenced for capital punishment, which is what they want. So it would be better if they kept them in prison to not fulfill their desire. Other countries which do not use the death penalty would have better likeness of the countries which do not use the death penalty. I would personally agree with the death penalty as it gives a sigh of relief to the victims family and would deter future major crimes. This is the most debatable topic in the criminal justice system. There are many advantages and disadvantages to the death penalty, but if people see the advantages and disadvantages correctly and have empathy for the victims then, they will support capital punishment more. So therefore regarding my previous arguments, having the death penalty is a better option of serving justice in the criminal justice system, as it will help curb future criminals.

The Importance of Confidence Essay example -- Personal Narrative Essay

The Importance of Confidence Most of life's situations are learning experiences. People can learn what activities are right or wrong for them by experiences these emotions in different situations. These learning experiences can take place at home, school, the workplace, or anywhere else. The three major experiences that have given me confidence in my ability to learn have all taken place at Penn State University. One experience that, in the end, gave me confidence was my first semester of lessons with the Penn State School of Music clarinet professor. The Professor was not a personable man. He was very quick to criticize every mistake I was making and was very blunt with his comments. I felt like a failure. I was very sensitive, and began to cry many times. Being that sensitive didn't help at all. When I finally did so something well, he made me feel great. I learned that no matter how badly I am playing, I must stay confident, for crying doesn't help anything. I know now that his criticisms were made so I could work on my weakness in my playing and get better. He was not ...

The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse :: Immigration, Immigrants

â€Å"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.† -- President Franklin D. Roosevelt Throughout the course of my life, I have always encountered individuals wanting to better their economic situation especially those within my community. Those who come from impoverished communities in other countries risk their lives and lifetime savings to come to the United States hoping that one day they will regain everything that they lost. Their only motivation to come to this country is to be able to provide their family with basic necessities and in order to do this, they must work two or more jobs that pay at minimum wage and are taken for granted. However, many individuals do not see this side of the story and categorize immigrants as unambitious people. In order to be completely aware of what immigrants truly go through and how they succeed in life, one must be willing to place themselves in their shoes and hear his/her story. We must acknowledge that the hands of these people work in back breaking jobs in order to sustain their families. While some Americans may be agains t immigrants arriving to the United States in search of a better life and the American Dream, in The Madonnas of Echo Park, Brando Skyhorse further reveals that immigrants are exploited as cheap labor, and although they contribute greatly to the everyday function of American industry, they are quite invisible. Mexican immigrants in the United States are willing to work hard and long hours throughout the day regardless of the amount of sleep or rest they may get. Conversely, this is not how Efren Mendoza, a public city bus driver, views Mexicans and he believes they are not motivated to achieve things in life. One would assume that he would understand how difficult it is for immigrants to assimilate in a new foreign country without knowing anyone or anything here, but he is not on their side and it is somewhat hypocritical of him because he himself is Mexican. It is as though Efren sees his own people as invisible individuals because he does not acknowledge all their hard work and sacrifices they may have gone through in order to arrive in the United States. He further proves his insincerity when he mentions that the â€Å"new wetbacks [are] picky about what jobs they’ll do [and that they] half-ass [the] work† that they are given to do (77).

Argument Against Reality Television Essay -- Persuasive Essays, Argum

What pleasure do you get from watching a group of people humiliate themselves in the name of television? Media both in the UK and around the world seem to have "discovered" that so-called "reality" shows are very profitable, resulting in a growing string of such shows in recent years. Although not all are successful, many do achieve significant popularity and cultural prominence. That does not mean, however, that they are good for society or that they should be aired. Can you honestly say, that after absorbing the reality rubbish, you have learned something? Educational, stimulating, witty, are all adjectives you would not associate with reality television. Reality T.V is a case of vegetating in front of the screen and glazing gormlessly at a group of half-hearted celebrities as they involve themselves inà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ a deep philosophical conversation. Not only does Reality Television reflect appallingly on our media culture, but it corrupts the mind of youngsters, giving them twisted views on society. What person are you becoming if you are sitting there daydreaming about who is going to be "evicted" from Big Brother? Well, you're the one the needs a snap back to realityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ One of the attractions of reality television is the supposed "reality" of it - unscripted and unplanned situations and reactions. One of the ethical problems of reality television is the fact that it isn't nearly as "real" as it pretends to be. At least in dramatic shows one can expect the audience to understand that what they see on the screen doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of the actors' lives; the same, however, cannot be said for heavily edited and con... ...tem from the increasing separation we experience from others around us. The more distant we are from each other as individuals, the more readily we can objectify each other and fail to experience sympathy and empathy when others around us suffer. The fact that we are witnessing events not in front of us but rather on television, where everything is has an unreal and fictional air about it, probably aids in this process as well. I'm not saying that you should never watch reality TV programming, but the motivations behind being a viewer are ethically suspect. Instead of passively accepting whatever media companies try to feed you, it would be better to take some time to reflect on why such programming is made and why you feel attracted to it. Perhaps you will find that your motivations themselves are not so attractive.

Business Intelligence Essay

1. Integration * 1.1 BI infrastructure * * All tools in the platform use the same security, metadata, administration, portal integration, object model and query engine, and should share the same look and feel. * 1.2 Metadata management * Not only should all tools leverage the same metadata, but the offering should provide a robust way to search, capture, store, reuse and publish metadata objects such as dimensions, hierarchies, measures, performance metrics and report layout objects. * 1.3 Development tools * The BI platform should provide a set of programmatic development tools and a visual development environment, coupled with a software developer’s kit for creating BI applications, integrating them into a business process, and/or embedding them in another application. The BI platform should also enable developers to build BI applications without coding by using wizard-like components for a graphical assembly process. The development environment should also support Web services in performing common tasks such as scheduling, delivering, administering and managing. In addition, the BI application can assign and track events or tasks allotted to specific users, based on predefined business rules. Often, this capability can be delivered by integrating with a separate portal or workflow tool. 1.4 Collaboration * This capability enables BI users to share and discuss information, BI content and results, and/or manage hierarchies and metrics via discussion threads, chat and annotations, either embedded in the BI platform or through integration with collaboration, social software and analytical master data management (MDM). 2. Information Delivery 2.1 Reporting * * Reporting provides the ability to create formatted and interactive reports, with or without parameters, with highly scalable distribution and scheduling capabilities. In addition, BI platform vendors should handle a wide array of reporting styles (for example, financial, operational and performance dashboards), and should enable users to access and fully interact with BI content delivered consistently across delivery platforms including the Web, mobile devices and common portal environments. * 2.2 Dashboards * This subset of reporting includes the ability to publish formal, Web-based or mobile reports with intuitive interactive displays of information, including dials, gauges, sliders, check boxes and traffic lights. These displays indicate the state of the performance metric compared with a goal or target value. Increasingly, dashboards are used to disseminate real-time data from operational applications or in conjunction with a complex event processing engine. * 2.3 Ad hoc query * This capability enables users to ask their own questions of the data, without relying on IT to create a report. In particular, the tools must have a robust semantic layer to allow users to navigate available data sources. These tools should include a disconnected analysis capability that enables users to access BI content and analyze data remotely without being connected to a server-based BI application. In addition, these tools should offer query governance and auditing capabilities to ensure that queries perform well. * 2.4 Microsoft Office integration * In some use cases, BI platforms are used as a middle tier to manage, secure and execute BI tasks, but Microsoft Office (particularly Excel) acts as the BI client. In these cases, it is vital that the BI vendor provides integration with Microsoft Office applications, including support for document and presentation formats, formulas, data â€Å"refreshes† and pivot tables. Advanced integration includes cell locking and write-back. * 2.5 Search-based BI * * This applies a search index to both structured and unstructured data sources and maps them into a classification structure of dimensions and measures (often, but not necessarily leveraging the BI semantic layer) that users can easily navigate and explore using a search (Google-like) interface. This capability extends beyond keyword searching of BI platform content and metadata. 2.6 Mobile BI This capability enables organizations to deliver report and dashboard content to mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) in a publishing and/or interactive (bidirectional) mode, and takes advantage of the interaction mode of the device (tapping, swiping and so on) and other capabilities not commonly available on desktops and laptops, such as location awareness. 3. Analysis * 3.1 Online analytical processing (OLAP) * * This enables end users to analyze data with extremely fast query and calculation performance, enabling a style of analysis known as â€Å"slicing and dicing.† Users are (often) able to easily navigate multidimensional drill paths. And they (sometimes) have the ability to write-back values to a proprietary database for planning and â€Å"what if† modeling purposes. This capability could span a variety of data architectures (such as relational or multidimensional) and storage architectures (such as disk-based or in-memory). * 3.2 Interactive visualization * This gives users the ability to display numerous aspects of the data more efficiently by using interactive pictures and charts, instead of rows and columns. Over time, advanced visualization will go beyond just slicing and dicing data to include more process-driven BI projects, allowing all stakeholders to better understand the workflow through a visual representation. * 3.3 Predictive modeling and data mining * This capability enables organizations to classify categorical variables and to estimate continuous variables using advanced mathematical techniques. BI developers are able to integrate models easily into BI reports, dashboards and analysis, and business processes. 3.4 Scorecards These take the metrics displayed in a dashboard a step further by applying them to a strategy map that aligns key performance indicators (KPIs) with a strategic objective. Scorecard metrics should be linked to related reports and information in order to do further analysis. A scorecard implies the use of a performance management methodology such as Six Sigma or a balanced scorecard framework. Market Leaders IBM. SAS. Oracle. 1 Oracle 1.1 Strengths * * In 2011, Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite, with its principal component Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), continued to execute on its stated top-to-bottom BI vision. This year, the products have the highest aggregate Ability to Execute scores. References depict a customer base that is Oracle through and through — 85% run Oracle Database as their data warehouse, nearly 75% run Oracle Applications, and a majority utilizes Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle is deployed most broadly (in respect of global deployment) of any vendor in this Magic Quadrant, with average user populations nearing 3,000 and data volumes of more than 5 TB, and it is considered the BI standard for nearly 70% of firms surveyed. While complex workloads are below average, the breadth of use scores in the highest quartile. * * During the Magic Quadrant evaluation process, Oracle announced and completed its acquisition of Endeca, a search-based provider of e-commerce and analytic capabilities. Customer surveys were conducted before the Endeca acquisition was completed; therefore, Endeca is not factored into the Magic Quadrant evaluation of Oracle’s execution, but was considered as part of its long-term product vision. Relatively low numbers of existing references access hybrid data types using OBIEE. Gartner believes that this is a forward-looking acquisition that will have significant impact on the company’s business analytics future (see â€Å"Endeca Buy Extends Oracle’s Ability to Support and Discover Diverse Data† for a more detailed opinion of the acquisition). * * In October 2011, the company announced an engineered system — Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine — that leveraged assets across the Oracle stack. The integrated hardware/software analytics solution features a package of OBIEE with new in-memory capabilities (based on Oracle’s acquisition of TimesTen), optimized Oracle Essbase to support the range of traditional BI (reporting, dashboards and analysis), and dynamic planning, what-if and scenario analysis, as well as interactive visualization and data discovery capabilities. The system is designed to support high-performance BI and performance management use cases with the intention of improving the performance, scale and speed of reporting, analysis and planning applications. It is now generally available. * * References select Oracle primarily for functionality, enterprise application integration, and data access capabilities. Additionally, customers indicated that they valued the products’ ability to support large numbers of users. Like other megavendors, the product road map plays an important role in the evaluation process. Ease of use and cost do not factor significantly into the selection process. * * Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA) are predefined analytic applications for horizontal business processes such as finance, procurement and sales analysis. Customers and prospects find this combination of analytic applications built using the OBIEE toolset appealing, with many buyers selecting both at evaluation time. Additionally, the company also delivers vertical-specific analytic data models for industries such as retail and financial services for IT buyers looking to establish a common data model standard as the foundation for analytics. 1.2 Cautions * References rate OBIEE as difficult to implement, with only SAS Institute considered more difficult. Also, the product was rated as having lower than average ease of use scores. As ease of use for both developers and end users takes on an even more important role in business analytic deployments and evaluations, Oracle must explicitly address these issues or risk being marginalized in user-driven projects. The company has been slow to respond to the data discovery trend. However, some functions are now available in the Exalytics In-Memory Machine, and the Endeca acquisition will add more capabilities in this important area. * * Product functionality evaluation scores remain below average again this year, a trend that appeared in last year’s report. Additionally, customer support and product quality issues are rated below the average (in the fourth and third quartiles respectively) for all vendors in this report. In fact, both support and product quality were also noted as issues that blocked further deployments within customer organizations. This represents a slip from last year’s scores. While not huge red flag items now, they may become more problematic without dedicated company attention to address client concerns. * * Oracle customers use the product mostly for static report viewing, parameterized reporting and scorecard capabilities, leading to below average user complexity ratings. Slightly more than 25% of customers Gartner surveyed for this report run the most current version of the BI suite, which is significantly below average for vendors in this analysis. * * More than 10% of survey respondents indicate that they plan to discontinue, or are evaluating a discontinuation of, software use in the next three years — a relatively high response rate given responses from the prior year. This is above the average for all vendors in this research. 2 SAS 2.1 Strengths * * SAS gets high marks for its global footprint and broad industry initiatives. Unlike some other BI platform vendors, SAS focuses on advanced analytical techniques, such as data mining and predictive modeling, where references acknowledge it as a leader of the pack. SAS’s clients also have above average complexity scores (for the depth of use of different BI use cases) on larger than average data sources. SAS customers also access and interpret unstructured internal and external data more often than any other vendor’s clients surveyed for this Magic Quadrant. * * SAS’s solution-oriented analytic application approach to the market is a differentiator, giving the company the advantage of having a wide variety of cross-functional and vertically specific analytic applications out of the box for a variety of industries, including financial services, life sciences and manufacturing. While others are also adopting this approach, SAS remains in the lead. Customers also report an above average sales experience. * * The primary drivers for customers choosing SAS remain functionality and data integration. In addition, references reported that they select SAS because of availability of skills. In the past, we have heard concerns over a lack of available SAS expertise; we suspect that this improvement is linked to the aggressive stance the company has taken to forge substantial partnerships with services firms, specifically Accenture. This broadened ecosystem also expands SAS’ sales channels with multiple partners positioning SAS-based solutions to their customers. * * On the software partnership front, SAS has partnered with a number of database vendors (such as Teradata) to push the execution of its models directly into the database management system without moving the data. Not only does this reduce data duplication and movement, it also allows SAS users to leverage the power and scalability features of the database to run predictive models against very large datasets with high performance. * Overall, SAS has a wide and loyal user base, many of whom have built careers around these products. References have a solid, positive outlook for SAS’s success within their organizations, as well as in the market as a whole. The company recently reported double-digit revenue growth for 2011. 2.2 Cautions * * References report that SAS is very difficult to implement — it was the No. 1 firm in this category. Companies also indicate that the product is considered difficult to use for business users (it was ranked No. 2 in this category). Its dashboard capabilities were rated lowest of all the vendors in this research. SAS is very much aware of these criticisms, and in 2011 embarked on a major development initiative involving hundreds of resources to improve usability and implementation activities. While it is too early to see the results of these efforts in surveys, we expect to see improvement in these areas in next year’s reference assessment. If no improvement is noted, this will directly impact SAS’s Ability to Execute scores for 2013. * * SAS’s dominance in predictive analytics and statistics continues to be challenged on many fronts. In addition to the SPSS suite, IBM also acquired Algorithmics in 2011 to bolster its portfolio; we are seeing greater adoption of open-source â€Å"R† in some products and embedded predictive and statistical capabilities in others. New entrants to the BI platform Magic Quadrant Prognoz and Alteryx accentuate these capabilities as core components of their product suites. While SAS still remains the acknowledged front runner, buyers have more options now, and SAS must continue to defend its franchise. The company recognizes this and, for example, has reinvigorated its emphasis on placing its software products in higher education settings for student and teacher use. * * Customer references report that cost is the most common factor blocking further adoption. In fact, verbatim responses to the survey mention cost in many ways — leasing terms, expensive to maintain, ongoing costs and so on — and, again, the company is very much aware of this criticism. With more options now available, SAS should also remain responsive to customers and prospects in these areas. The average tenure of SAS’s reference customers that participated in this survey was five years. Over 10% reported that they are planning to replace or are considering replacing the software in the next three years. Despite SAS’s success and awareness as a leader in the predictive analytics space, the company is still challenged to make it onto BI platform shortlist evaluations when predictive analytics is not a primary business requirement. While a little less than 60% of references indicated that SAS was their company’s BI standard, functionality used in traditional BI areas (reporting, dashboards, OLAP and so on) was lower than for other BI leaders in this report. Like last year, ad hoc query remains the one exception, with clients aggressively using SAS BI for that component. 3 IBM 3.1 Strengths * * IBM maintains its leading position on the Completeness of Vision axis for this year’s Magic Quadrant. The company takes a holistic approach to what it calls Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO), combining comprehensive software, hardware and services in a coordinated market offering. IBM’s business analytics software portfolio includes a unified BI, analytics and performance management platform, and is complemented by IBM information management software and appliances (Netezza, for example). Services are made up of a consulting line of nearly 9,000 people, which is a growing part of IBM Global Business Services (GBS). IBM can offer both a tools-based and/or a solution-driven offering, along with significant vertical expertise, to customers and prospects. * In 4Q10, IBM introduced its latest business analytics platform, IBM Cognos 10. Throughout 2011, additional capabilities have been released and customer adoption has begun in earnest. Cognos 10 references who responded to this year’s Magic Quadrant survey painted a very interesting snapshot — on average nearly 4,000 users, over 12 TB of data, broad functional use, and very high platform integration scores, all at or near the top of all ratings for all vendors in this report. Overall, Cognos 10 references were significantly more satisfied than Cognos 8 customers, who were the majority of IBM’s survey respondents. While some indicated that upgrading from Cognos 8 to Cognos 10 had some complexity, the majority rated it as straightforward or very straightforward. This bodes well for IBM’s future ability to execute, providing the firm delivers superior service and support and problem-free software. * * The average tenure of IBM respondents was seven years, second highest of all vendors in this survey. Gartner often hears this long-standing customer commitment in inquiry, and this represents a strong customer loyalty factor. This year, less than 7% of references noted that they are planning to discontinue use of the software in the next three years (or are considering doing so), which is significantly lower than last year’s result. * * Advanced analytics is a particular IBM strength. The company’s SPSS software continues to advance nicely, readily allowing IBM to bid for predictive analytics and statistical use cases. Customers rated IBM’s predictive capabilities in the top quartile of all vendors. A secret weapon at IBM’s disposal — IBM Research — delivers another level of research and development prowess to the overall IBM value proposition. For example, Watson, the Deep Question and Answer system that interprets natural language and scores possible answers based on probability, is a visible example of IBM Research at work. While not a part of the Cognos 10 platform, it demonstrates the depth and breadth that IBM can bring to clients’ advanced analytic scenarios. * The top reasons why customers select IBM are functionality, ease of use for end users, and data access and integration. IBM’s road map and future vision weighed heavily in reference decisions. In 2011, IBM delivered a new Cognos 10 mobile application for the iPad that is included free in existing user roles. In early 2012 the company will introduce Cognos Insight, a personal, desktop BI product that enables independent discovery and â€Å"what if† modeling, while also providing full interoperability with the larger workgroup and enterprise solutions. 3.2 Cautions * Twenty-three percent of Cognos 8 references indicate that performance continues to be problematic (a persistent problem for the last several years), nearly three times the average response for other vendors evaluated in this Magic Quadrant. In contrast, Cognos 10 references reported below average performance concerns. This is a sure signal that IBM must encourage upgrades to Cognos 10 without technical and/or financial disruption. * Again this year, references consider the Cognos products more difficult to implement and use than those of competitors. While Cognos 10 was rated slightly below average, other IBM products (Cognos 8, SPSS software and Cognos TM1) were deemed significantly more difficult. These are cited as two major reasons that limit expanded BI deployments with Cognos 8. As such, improved system administration and end-user usability were major development themes of the Cognos 10 release. References indicate that Cognos software is used largely by a consumer/casual user population. Reporting is the most extensively deployed component, followed by ad hoc query and OLAP analysis. * * IBM’s customers also continue to have less than optimal customer experiences, with support and sales interactions, along with product quality, rated in the bottom quartile of all vendors reviewed in this report. References also rate product functionality slightly below the average for all vendors. The bright spot is that Cognos 10 references rated product functionality near the top of all vendors, and support, sales and product quality were rated better than for Cognos 8. These issues remain IBM’s Achilles’ heel, and will limit its ability to raise execution scores next year unless action is taken quickly. * * License cost continues to be another source of customer concern across all products in the IBM business analytics portfolio. Gartner client inquiry also bears out this concern. Higher than expected costs to upgrade from Cognos 8 to Cognos 10 have stalled some projects, but changes in configuration, user roles, and/or support costs appear to drive the increase. As a counterpoint, existing Cognos 10 users did not identify license cost as a concern.