Which vision of e-commerce will win the future remains unclear, but large-scale digital marketplaces could see bonuses in either strategy.

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Microsoft says it will use the company's software, people and intellectual property to accelerate the delivery of its unified communications vision, a vision bringing together various technologies including e-mail, instant messaging, short message service, telephony, and Web conferencing.

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Today, Apigee announced the launch Apigee Insights, a platform for capturing and operationalizing signals gathered from big data, contextual data, and interactions intermediated by APIs. (Apigee has published an e-book explaining the platform.) But the core vision of the product is based on an advanced pattern for big data value creation that will be applicable to many industries.

FORBES: Apigee Insights: An Innovative Pattern for Big Data Value Creation