Turning Big Data into actionable data is made possible by at least two key factors: (1) cloud computing, which scales in processing power, thereby allowing (2) the application of business intelligence, which works most efficiently when integrated with the cloud.

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Mobile apps combined with the power of cloud computing will allow business intelligence and analytics to become affordable to even the smallest of merchants.

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As of the last annual survey, the three-highest rated priorities for investment from 2012 to 2015 included Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI), Mobile Technologies and Cloud Computing.

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And third, an Information Cloud where virtualized information is integrated with business intelligence to allow corporations to leverage their data assets to achieve tactical and strategic goals.

FORBES: Names to Know in Big Data: Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)

The county is also using SPSS predictive analytics software, Cognos business intelligence software, i2 Intelligent Law Enforcement solution, a private cloud system on zLinux hosted on an IBM System z mainframe and IBM PureFlex System.

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More than one out four of the 1, 364 organizations surveyed (27%), in fact, already use or plan to use cloud or software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings to augment their core business intelligence (BI) functions.

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