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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By Douglas Wood, Infoglide Senior Vice President

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.

The question of when companies like Oracle, SAP and Microsoft react – and how – will keep the blogosphere humming for awhile.

From the perspective of identity resolution – technologies that go well beyond simple matching - the IBM announcement creates a very interesting scenario.  Let’s be honest… there are three organizations have been truly positioned as leaders in providing SEV functionality that helps organizations expose fuzzy matches and non-obvious relationships across data sources.  IBM and Initiate are two;  Infoglide Software Corporation is the third.  IBM’s Identity Insight (formerly EAS), Initiate’s entity resolution, and Infoglide’s Identity Resolution Engine (IRE) all  deliver the promise of SEV or “who’s who… and who knows whom” technology, and all three answer considerably more than “yes it’s a match” or “no it’s not a match”.

In the case of Initiate Systems, the entity resolution product is new, and frankly came about as a basic repackaging of their successful MDM product for the Healthcare market.  IBM’s product, like Infoglide’s, was built from the ground up as an identity resolution engine by Jeff Jonas and the old SRD organization.  Now, with today’s announcement, IBM seems to have created some painful duplicity in their offerings.  It occurs to me that IBM has not become a global technology leader by mismanaging its products and messaging, so something’s gotta give!  Which product goes away, and when, will be interesting to see.

Either way, there are now effectively two players left standing in the SEV market – IBM and Infoglide.

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By Douglas Wood, Infoglide Senior Vice President

Much is happening these days in the Data Quality space.  Customers are embracing MDM strategies at a record pace, M&A activity has picked up from an industry perspective, and the various players in the data quality marketplace are expanding their offerings like never before.  It matters little if the objective is to vet fraud or to master data. The race to deliver the dream of an enterprise-wide single-entity-view (SEV) is on.  Gentlemen (and Danica Patrick)… start your engines!

The key word here, naturally, is ‘engines’.  An engine moves things forward, and performs considerably more than one basic task.  As has been well-documented here at IdentityResolutionDaily, a true identity resolution engine plays a vital part of any SEV initiative.  Technologies that can look at data across disparate silos and return results that point to both matches AND non-obvious relationships are in high demand…  and set to grow even further in 2010.  The simplicity of “yes it’s a match” or “no, it’s not a match” is no longer sufficient for most organizations as they seek the single-entity-view.  Remember, an entity is not merely made up of attributes… but also relationships.  A true ‘engine’ points to those relationships, and moves the entire data quality initiative forward.

An engine cares little what the car looks like, and ought to drive a multitude of vehicles.  Similarly, an identity resolution engine ought to be built to solve a multitude of problems.  SEV for exposing risk and fraud, SEV for Healthcare Patient Matching, SEV for Law Enforcement, SEV for customer relationship management, SEV for data disambiguation, SEV for house-holding, and so on and so on.  The engine should perform the same functions… while only the domain (or body type) changes.

It also occurs to us that the engine ought to be flexible in terms of what is mounted to the chassis – and how.  Do you want the 2.2L engine?  4 cylinder or 6 cylinder?  In the case of an identity resolution engine, customers ought to be able to pick how the functionality is delivered.  Full enterprise software license with professional services to build the car?  Done.  Functionality on demand a la Infoglide Software’s Identity Resolution as a Service (IRaaS ^TM) offering?  You got it.  A SEV appliance that sits behind a customer’s firewall to alleviate privacy-in-data concerns?  No problem.

The need for an SEV engine that provides a powerful library of matching and relationship capabilities, delivered in a variety of customer-friendly methods is now more critical than ever.  With the increase in activity lately around the MDM space, one thing is clear:  the race is most definitely on.

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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 Douglas Wood, Infoglide Senior Vice President

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.

The first thing that springs to mind is what Oracle would intend to do with Informatica.  A long-time business partner of Oracle, strengthened through the 2008 purchase of Identity Systems, Informatica could now only be classified as a true and direct competitor to Oracle.  Can Oracle continue to OEM technology (SSA Name3, for example) from what would instantly become a major competitor?  Sleeping with the enemy is one thing… leaving money on the nightstand afterwards is another thing altogether!  It will be interesting to see what happens here, to say the least.

The other rumored acquisition is that of Initiate Systems by IBM.  Thought to be roughly twice the size of Siperian, Initiate would tend to give further credibility to IBM’s vast – and growing – presence in the Health Care industry, where Initiate has become a recognized industry leader.  What muddies the waters, however, would be the question of what IBM would intend to do with Initiate’s entity resolution engine.  In a nutshell, Initiate has been one of two software vendors doing an excellent job of providing technologies applicable for both MDM and fraud/risk related implementations.  Infoglide Software Corporation is the other.

Marketed in an eerily similar fashion to Infoglide’s earlier-released Identity Resolution Engine (is imitation the most sincere form of flattery?), Initiate’s offering in this identity resolution space could become short-lived given IBM’s large and ongoing investment in InfoSphere Identity Insight Solutions (formerly Entity Analytics Solutions).  How soon that would happen, of course, is anyone’s guess.

One thing is certain, however: the need for technology that is applicable to both MDM initiatives and that exposes risk and fraud through matching and linking of entities is very real and growing.  How the other major industry players react – should either or both of these rumors become reality – will define the industry for years to come.

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By Robert Barker, Infoglide Senior VP & Chief Marketing Officer

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.

Underscoring the importance that accurate information plays in effective treatment, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed in 2009 includes incentives for hospitals and doctors to adopt and support certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. In fact, the Act set aside $20 billion to encourage health care organizations to improve their recordkeeping through healthcare information technology.

Today’s hot healthcare industry topic, therefore, is electronic health records. While an EHR can create the potential for interoperability, it can’t deliver interoperability without robust identity resolution. High-quality health care depends on complete, unambiguous patient information being available at all times, so identity resolution technology has become a crucial component of a well-designed healthcare identification infrastructure.

By applying identity resolution to patient identification integrity, identity resolution can prevent common medical errors:
Duplicates are a simple example, where the two records exist for the same person within a single facility. More complex types of errors can easily start to mount up, including overlaps where more than one record exists for one person within two facilities within a single organization, and overlays where information for two people are integrated under a single record.

The rush to respond to ARRA resulted in overstatements of the identity resolution capabilities of many products. For example, most master data management (MDM) systems include matching and de-duplication capabilities that have become labeled “identity resolution” while in fact they lack the critical requirements for identity resolution. Dan Power of Hub Solution Designs has pointed out the growing role of identity resolution in MDM and the need for MDM vendors to move beyond “not invented here” thinking to incorporate true identity resolution into their offerings.

Confusion about medical records can lead to chaos. Clearing up confusion about identity resolution clears a path out of the chaos that will lead to better solutions.

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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

Topeka Capital-Journal: Five arrests in lottery fraud

“In this investigation, agents presented unsigned winning lottery tickets to retailers. The clerks were required to advise customers they had won a prize and instruct each they had to redeem winnings at lottery headquarters. In six instances, the clerks withheld information about the winning ticket but later tried to redeem the prize personally or with help of an accomplice.”

New York Times: Computerized Health Records

“Most other countries have much more use of electronic health records than we do. For example, the Danes have virtually 100 percent of physicians using electronic health records. In Britain, virtually 100 percent of primary care physicians use them. In Australia, Sweden, Norway, virtually 100 percent. In many, many other Western countries, the electronic record is virtually ubiquitous.”

ebizQ: Eight Reasons Why Data-Centricity Is The Future Of Business

“Unfortunately less well known, Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) is, however, likely the most strategic aspect of creating business value over the network, more than SaaS and possibly even more than PaaS. Creating a best-of-breed set of data, wrapping a business model around it (advertising, metering, internal chargebacks, build a network effect, etc), defining an SLA, and opening it up internally or to the world is how to both generate consumption as well as becoming in itself the new lock-in.”

reviewjournal.com: A fusion of crime fighters 

“The fusion center concept, which was developed by the federal government after the 9/11 attacks, is grounded in the idea that information flow between police agencies is key to stopping terrorism. But in Las Vegas and elsewhere, the concept has evolved to include a broader ‘all crimes, all hazards’ approach.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Entity Resolution Metrics

“In the last post we looked at the problem of measuring the accuracy of entity resolution processes.  As with any accuracy measure, comparing to a known standard of correctness or benchmark is required.  However, even without a benchmark, other measures are also important in evaluating ER outcomes.”

SmartData Collective: MDM: Build or Buy?

“In the paper, I describe five core MDM functions that should drive a deliberate MDM strategy:

1. Data cleansing and correction
2. Metadata
3. Security and access services
4. Data migration
5. Identity resolution”

New York Times: The Rules on Names Could Bend a Little

“Given more precise information at booking, the T.S.A. expects to be able to match more precisely a passenger’s identity against those on the watch list. This should reduce the number of false positives — people who are flagged at security until it can be determined that they are not the person with a similar name who is on a watch list. ‘The Secure Flight watch-list matching process occurs before a passenger even gets to the airport,’ Mr. Leyh said. ‘So if you get a boarding pass, the Secure Flight watch-list matching process is done.’ In other words, you are clear once you get that pass.”

O’Reilly radar: Health gets personal in the cloud

“A Personal Health Record (PHR) is one way that patients can have some control of their own health data, while providing an interoperable platform for sharing relevant clinical data between providers. Healthcare is changing rapidly and there are some important trends worth watching. Healthcare in the near future will be quite different than it is today. Web enabled technology is already changing the way medicine is practiced. As the digital nation comes of age we will see new opportunities, and new challenges, bringing healthcare in America into the 21st century.”

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[Post from Infoglide] The Big Story: Evolution

“Technology writer Chris Calnan’s story opened with a comment about Infoglide that nicely sums up the evolution of the broader market for identity resolution and entity analytics: ‘The market may have finally caught up with Infoglide Software Corp.’s technology.’”

OCDQ Blog: Beyond a “Single Version of the Truth”

“However, in his excellent book Data Driven: Profiting from Your Most Important Business Asset, Thomas Redman explains: ‘A fiendishly attractive concept is… ‘a single version of the truth’…the logic is compelling…unfortunately, there is no single version of the truth. For all important data, there are…too many uses, too many viewpoints, and too much nuance for a single version to have any hope of success. This does not imply malfeasance on anyone’s part; it is simply a fact of life. Getting everyone to work from a single version of the truth may be a noble goal, but it is better to call this the ‘one lie strategy’ than anything resembling truth.’”

RISK&INSURANCE: States of Disparity

“Risk & Insurance® looked at four factors that indicate how well a state’s workers’ comp system may be working. Those factors were adjusted by giving additional weight to the amount of premium charged to the employer, and the benefits paid to claimants. The states are ranked by their composite score.”

Security Management: DHS Official Outlines Federal Support to State-based Fusion Centers

“To better facilitate information sharing, Johnson promised DHS will deploy personnel to all fusion centers while giving fusion centers access to the Homeland Security Data Network by the end of fiscal year 2010. Currently, I&A has 44 field representatives based in fusion centers nationwide. I&A will also manage the newly created Joint Fusion Center-Program Management Office (JFC-PMO), which Napolitano tasked in October with coordinating how DHS’ various components and other federal agencies will support fusion centers.”

MedicExchange.com: EMR likely to boom throughout 2013

“Health IT currently is growing at an 11 percent annual rate, and solid growth should continue at least through 2013, which would be the third year of the federal EMR stimulus program here in the States, the Scientia report forecasts. In that time frame, health IT will increase its market share by a quarter, to 5 percent of global healthcare products sales from the current 4 percent.”

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