And then there are people who aren't so well-known but whose data crises could cripple their businesses--like the IT manager of the New York City publisher that lost its catalogdata three days before deadline.
Those companies, including Palantir, a startup founded in 2004 which specializes in multi-platform data analysis, enabled the Pentagon to store and catalog every grain of data it had on the people it was tracking.
Aspect tracks the form, function and price of more than 10 million components, then meshes this mega-catalog with a client's data on preferred suppliers, inventory and buying habits. 3Com Corp. used it to learn that six departments were paying different prices for the same component from different suppliers.