Identity Resolution Daily

[Post from Infoglide] And Then There Were Two

“IBM announced today that it plans to buy MDM vendor Initiate Systems.  As hypothesized here in this blog last week, the move was not entirely unexpected, but on the heels of last week’s announcement by Informatica to purchase Siperian, it certainly creates yet another wave in the marketplace.  More moves are certain to take place as competing companies align – and realign – their Single Entity View (SEV) strategies.  The key to this realignment will be for current industry players to maximize their functionality beyond ‘playing with matches’.  That dated view of fuzzy matching is no longer enough.  Not for the large data quality vendors.  Certainly not for the customer.”

Information Week: Global CIO: IBM Data Strategy Is Flawed, Say Kalido And Informatica

“Noting that Initiate’s product is spefically designed to handle only certain types of data—customer data and product data—Kalido CEO Hewitt says, ‘Where they have struggled is in mastering multiple domains, even though they advertise their products as such. The problem is that as you add domains, the complexity of the data relationships expands exponentially. So one domain might have 100 relationships, two domains 300 relationships, 10 domains 3,000 relationships. So when one master data element changes, hundreds of relationships could change, which requires a governance process to manage it.’”

Columbia Daily Tribune: Networks advance child-trafficking investigation

“Watson called up a contact at the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), a fusion center that combines intelligence from federal law enforcement and state and military sources. Watson also called a friend at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked him to prepare a ’serious incident report.’ ICE mobilized an officer specializing in human trafficking within minutes, Watson said.”

ITBusinessEdge: How Big Deals Affect MDM Competitors, Customers

“But the general upheaval in MDM aside, the IBM deal is interesting in another way. IBM has downplayed this as an MDM acquisition, positioning it more as buying into two verticals, health care and a government. Gartner’s Andrew White writes that at one point during the briefing, IBM was asked what the Initiate acquisition meant for MDM. IBM responded it reflects a ‘verticalization of MDM.’ White writes that’s good news for health care customers, but ‘troubling for IBM MDM product strategy.’”

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[Post from Infoglide] Master Data Movement

“I read with interest yesterday’s article at SeekingAlpha which discusses rumors swirling around the MDM software industry.  According to the article, sources suggest that two deals are very near completion.  The first of those rumored transactions would see Informatica picking up MDM provider Siperian.  On the heels of their acquisitions of Identity Systems and AddressDoctor, the Siperian purchase could not be totally unexpected – but would most certainly create some ripple effect worth watching.”

[Post from Infoglide] Connecting the Dots: We May Be Closer Than We Think

“Paul Rosenzweig, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security, recently posted an intriguing piece on Harvard National Security Journal about connecting the dots regarding the Christmas Bomber. He makes a strong case that a decision to stop research on data analytic tools in 2003 has contributed to the problem analysts face today in making sense of the massive and manifold data sources they sift through.”

Forrester Blog: Introducing The MDM Market’s Newest 800lb Gorilla: Informatica Acquires Siperian!

“In the short term, I’m sure Informatica will be more than happy to continue to collect revenue from Oracle while keeping this partnership alive, but don’t expect future negotiated contracted terms to remain very reasonable as Informatica gains traction with its MDM strategy. No matter how often Oracle says how happy they are to maintain a friendly state of co-opetition with strategic partners, I don’t anticipate they will want to run the risk of a competitor pulling the rug out from under its aggressive MDM strategy.”

News8Austin: Community forum poses questions about Fusion Center

“According to department officials, sharing information with neighboring jurisdictions as well as state and federal agencies ensures that crime history and other information is shared outside the city limits. The department said it the center will be one that ‘analyzes information in order to best detect, respond and hopefully prevent criminal and terrorist activity — as well as other public safety hazards.’”

Ramon Chen: Informatica + Siperian Acquisition = Premier MDM Platform

“As expected, Informatica has announced that it has acquired Siperian (disclosure, my former company) for $130M… If predictions are correct, this will be a relative ‘bargain’ when compared with the upcoming IBM and Initiate Systems tie up which is expected to be 4 to 5x Initiate’s $90M annual revenues.”

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By the Infoglide Team

Liliendahl on Data Quality: Create Table Homo_Sapiens

“Identity Resolution is about the same but  – if a distinction is considered to exist – uses a wider range of data, rules and functionality to relate collected data rows to real world entities. In my eyes exploiting external reference data will add considerable efficiency in the years to come within deduplication / identity resolution.”

OmniMD: Clock starts ticking on meaningful use comments

“The clock starts ticking today on a two-month window in which the public can comment on the Health & Human Service Department’s “meaningful use” proposal, a set of rules outlining how providers can qualify for incentives for using electronic health records.”

Beyond Search: Startling Fact: Size of Cloud Computing Market

“The global cloud computing market is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 28 percent from $47 billion in 2008 to $126 billion by 2012, according to IBM based on various market estimates.’

National Underwriter: Fraud Increases In ’09; Bureau Budgets Tighten 

“The Coalition interviewed 37 fraud bureaus during the first three weeks of Oct. 2009 for its survey, titled ‘The Economy and Fraud Fighting on the State Level.’ The bureau directors were asked for their views on trends in 15 areas of fraud, which include staged auto accidents, auto give-ups, padding auto and homeowner claims, arson, and workers’ compensation fraud by both workers and employers.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Healthcare Identity Resolution Confusion

“Confusion about medical records can lead to chaos. We’ve all heard horror stories about hospital tragedies caused by misidentification of a patient, such as applying an unnecessary surgery. It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of correct, unambiguous information in the practice of medicine. Knowing as much as possible about a patient enables a practitioner to reach a correct diagnosis and the proper treatment regimen in the least amount of time.”

NewsandSentinel.com: Local officials do their part to fight terrorism

“Tom Campbell, a consultant on terrorist issues who has worked with Sandy in the past, has been in the field of counter-terrorism for 14 years. We do not profile based on ethnicity and race, what we do is profile behavior,” said Campbell. “Terrorism is evolutionary. Terrorists are always changing their behavior, appearances and tactics. What we try to do to prevent terrorism is focus on the behavior. That’s how we disrupt it before it happens. The emphasis is on prevention.”

intelligent enterprise: Predicting BI Highlights for 2010

“Cloud computing and SaaS will become less niche as both BI heavy weights and vertically-focused vendors recognize that the infrastructure side of BI offers little competitive advantage; instead, it’s the time-to-value and agility. IT owners who don’t want to give up any control are in for a bruising.”

ISRIA: Testimony of Secretary Napolitano before the Senate Committee on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, “Intelligence Reform: The Lessons and Implications of the Christmas Day Attack”

“DHS uses TSDB data, managed by the Terrorist Screening Center that is administered by the FBI, to determine who may board, who requires further screening and investigation, who should not be admitted, or who should be referred to appropriate law enforcement personnel. Specifically, to help make these determinations, DHS uses the No-Fly List and the Selectee List, two important subsets within the TSDB. Individuals on the No-Fly List should not receive a boarding pass for a flight to, from, over, or within the United States.”

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By the Infoglide Team

hrtools: Workers’ comp anti-fraud and compliance program saved $128 million in FY 2009

“The fight against fraud in the workers’ compensation system brought in $128 million last year, according to a new report from the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I)… L&I also referred 25 fraud cases for criminal prosecution, including 18 workers, four employers, and three health care providers — with a 100 percent success rate.”  [Link to Full Report]

Connecticutplus.com: Governor Rell directs State Homeland Security officials to review summary of NWA 253 failures

“‘Connecticut is home to a state and local ‘fusion center‘ – a place where we share the information with our federal homeland security partners,’ Governor Rell said… Connecticut’s proximity to New York, its number of high-profile locations and its importance as a transportation hub mean that fusion center is a critical – and very busy – place. We want to make sure there are no avoidable breakdowns.’”

FierceEMR: CDC: More than 40 percent of docs have EMRs

“Breaking down the numbers leads to a little more sanity. About 20.5 percent of respondents say they had a basic system capable of recording patient demographics, problem lists, clinical notes, medication orders and of viewing test results. Just 6.3 percent had fully functional EMRs, with medical histories, electronic order entry, drug interaction checking, highlighting of abnormal readings and reminders for guideline-based interventions, the CDC says.”

The Server Room: Cloud Computing and the Hype Cycle

“Hence we’d like to claim that the recent interest in cloud computing, taken in the context of prior developments on grid computing, the service paradigm and virtualization and over the infrastructure provided by the Internet, is actually the slow climb into the Slope of Enlightenment.  Experimentation will continue, and some attempts will still fail.  However the general trend will be toward mainstreaming.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Entity-Based Integration Model

“From a business standpoint, entity resolution (ER) is really the first step of a two-part process of integrating information about entities.  Entity reference records usually carry two types of attributes describing the entity, identifying attributes and informational attributes. Although the line between the two can be fuzzy, identifying attributes are those that describe the entity’s ‘characteristics,’ information that tends to persist over time and helps to distinguish one entity from another of the same type.”

Healthcare Technology Online: 10 Healthcare IT Trends To Watch In 2010

“According to the latest statistics from HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society), only 0.5% of U.S. hospitals currently have a complete EMR (electronic medical record) system that provides data continuity throughout the institution. Hospitals and healthcare systems will install, integrate, and enhance EMR systems at an accelerated pace in an effort to demonstrate ‘meaningful use’ and capitalize on ARRA incentives.”

InformationWeek: Airline Security: The Technical Task Of Connecting Dots

“Pulling those data streams together–from federal agencies, law enforcement, foreign governments, and private sector companies–and getting that information to the right people quickly and in useable format are huge technical challenges. While there were obvious missed opportunities in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, including failure to take action with information in hand, it would be a mistake to underestimate the end-to-end data integration effort required as one of, simply, ‘connecting the dots.’”

ChannelWeb: Gartner: Cloud Computing Contributes To Mass IT Asset Exodus

“Cloud computing will take such a stranglehold on the market as companies try to reduce hardware spending that Gartner has made the bold proclamation that one-fifth of all businesses will own absolutely no IT assets come 2012.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Actionable Identity Intelligence from Identity Resolution

“The recent ‘Christmas Bomber’ incident incited many posts about applying technology to address the gaps that allowed it to happen. For example, David Loshin wrote about a piece for BeyeNETWORK about a ‘master terrorist system’ while Lawrence Dubov suggested improving the watch list process using entity resolution. While technology is a critical component of any solution, some specific issues about the technology are important to understand.”

[Post from Infoglide] Entity Resolution Cloud Rising in 2010

A recent Information Week article referenced Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s views on the future of IT that were offered during a December 17th analyst call. His remarks hint at the growing importance of cloud computing as a key driver in 2010. Writer Bob Evans mentioned that ‘Ellison also quite casually wove the terms ‘private clouds’ and ‘cloud computing’ into his strategic overview without lampooning them, which was a big step forward even though Ellison’s discomfort with the term is shared by IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd.’”

Business Computing World: Trends In Master Data Management

[Philip Howard] “One of the outcomes of the recession has been that a lot of companies have cut back on long-term projects, especially where ROI may not be clear. And talking to various people it is clear that one of the areas so hit has been large hub-based MDM (Master Data Management) projects. That is because these typically take 18 months to 2 years to implement, require a lot of investment in time and money, and the benefits are a long way in the future.”

Chicago Security: What is a Fusion Intelligence Analyst?

“These analysts are responsible for providing support to decision makers by fusing information from local and federal law enforcement criminal databases with national-level intelligence from the Department of Homeland Security, for example, to create relevant intelligence products (finished reports about salient issues) to leaders (also known as “intelligence customers”) at all levels of government.”

Initiate Blog: Entity Resolution to Build a Better “Watch List”

“We should not be afraid to create more data sources and integrate more information. The fear is we run the risk of missing the useful information in a sea of worthless data. Entity resolution technology can make sense of all that information and resolve identities and relationships between them.”

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By the Infoglide Team

Center for Advanced Public Safety: SHARE & PUSH

“While SHARE is strictly for communications between law enforcement and the state’s Fusion Center, a companion portal, called the Portal to Uphold a Secure Homeland (PUSH), was also developed as part of the USDHS ITEP project to support private sector security personnel who oversee critical infrastructure.”

HealthNewsDigest.com: Medical/Healthcare Privacy and Fraud Outlook for 2010

“You may not be aware of this, but medical-related fraud and identity theft are growing problems in America. With the exploding cost of healthcare, increasing bureaucratic administrative healthcare systems, and a large, aging Baby Boomer population requiring increased medical care, it would seem that we are entering into a kind of ‘perfect storm’ for medical fraud.”

Aerospace News & Views: Business Travel Association Calls for Greater Attention to Aviation Security

“NBTA has long supported risk-management programs that enhance aviation security. TSA’s Secure Flight helps to enhance domestic and international travel through the use of improved watch list matching, while the US-VISIT program collects biometric information from international travelers, both of which help to protect travelers and our nation. These programs should be used as readily available tools to improve the system that protects our global aviation security.”

[Wes Richel] Gartner: Simple Interop: Why We Don’t Seek a Top Level Domain Name

“Should anyone need a demonstration of the difficulties that delay reaching global agreements, consider that the term “EHR” has an idiosyncratic definition in the U.S. when compared to most of the world. In the U.S. the term refers to the record of patient information that is kept by an individual care delivery organization (CDO), with the proviso that there be some degree of interoperability. In most other countries that use the term it refers to some specific sharing of information that may be sourced from many places including but not limited to the electronic patient records of individual CDOs.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Data Fatigue

“Four years ago this week, a small aircraft lifted off from Watson Island in Miami. It was the plane’s 39,743rd flight. And as the tiny craft first vented white smoke and then lost its right wing in an explosion, it became clear that this was its last. All twenty people in the Grumman G73-T, including three infants, perished. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined that the culprit was metal fatigue.”

ovum: BI, EPM and EDW trends to watch out for in 2010

“For the mid-market and those new to BI, open source and BI software as a service (SaaS) will offer attractive alternatives. In the case of BI SaaS, increasing deployments of enterprise applications in the cloud by SMEs will act as a further driver for take-up of this option.”

destinationCRM.com: Electronic Health Records Get a Check-Up

“Hildreth references a 2009 New England Journal of Medicine survey indicating that close to 4 percent of physicians have a fully functional EHR system. About 13 percent of physicians’ offices have a basic EHR system in the works. Many organizations, Hildreth says, currently have bits and pieces of EHR, but not the full thing.”

insurancenewsnet.com: Hard-up Investigators Battle Against Rise In Comp Fraud

“While prosecution of various forms of insurance fraud is affected by budget constraints, the prosecution of underreporting of workers comp premiums by unscrupulous employers, or their outright failure to purchase the mandated coverage, may take the biggest hit, depending on each state’s priorities, Mr. Jay said.”

intelligent enterprise: Survey: BI Still Hindered By Technical Problems

“Specifically, the 2009 survey found that 29% of BI deployments were slightly successful and 47% were moderately successful. Only 21% of the respondents rated their deployments very successful.’A number of technical factors continue to contribute to — or hinder — stronger BI impact,’ the report said. ‘Data quality, reliability of the BI system and access to relevant data are the most important technical factors.’”

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By the Infoglide Team

San Francisco Examiner: San Francisco workers’ compensation claims seize millions

“The city and county of San Francisco employs approximately 26,000 people, and 3,406 workers’ comp claims were filed last fiscal year — which ended June 30 — costing The City $41.85 million. The payouts were 8 percent less than the previous year, in which $45.5 million was spent on compensation. This year, city officials say they aim to reduce claims by 5 percent as a projected budget deficit of $522.2 million looms.”

ICIQ 2010: 15th International Conference on Information Quality

“The International Conference on Information Quality (ICIQ) attracts researchers and practitioners from the academic, public and private sectors. Originally held on the MIT Campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 2010 conference will be hosted by the Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), the first university to offer graduate degree programs in information quality.”

WIRED: FBI: 19,000 Matches to Terrorist Screening List in 2009

“A subset of this list, the No Fly list, includes people considered a threat to aviation or national security and contains about 3,400 names, of which about 170 are U.S. persons. The list is used, among other things, to screen visa applicants and gun buyers as well as suspects stopped by local police. It’s also used by airport security personnel to single out some travelers for extra screening or interrogation.”

ChannelWeb: The 10 Biggest Cloud Computing Stories Of 2009

“Even as some pundits continued to debate the definition of cloud computing, virtually every IT hardware, software and service company sought to define (and in many cases redefine) itself as a cloud-computing vendor. That’s not surprising, perhaps, when Gartner puts the 2009 market for cloud computing services at $56.3 billion, growing to $150.1 billion by 2013.”

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