Companies have been collecting and analyzing data forever, pretty much.” So what’s really new here? What’s driving the data-analytics revolution and what does it mean for those that choose to postpone or ignore the pivotal role big-data is currently having on productivity and competition globally?

General Electric chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt explains it best when stating that “industrial companies are now in the information business—whether they like it or not.”  Likewise, digital data is now everywhere, it’s in every industry, in every economy, in every organization and according to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), this topic might once have concerned only a few data geeks, but big data is now relevant for leaders across every sector as well as consumers of products and services.

In light of the new data-driven global landscape and rapid technological advances, the question for senior leaders in companies now is how to integrate new capabilities into their operations and strategies—and position themselves globally where analytics can influence entire industries. An interesting discussion with six of theses senior leaders is covered in MGI’s article, “How companies are using big data and analytics,” providing us with a glimpse into a real-time decision making processes.

HP is taking legal action against Oracle for allegedly breaching its 2010 partnership agreement of porting HP’s core software products with the latest versions of Itanium. In March, Oracle announced it would not be developing any new versions for products designed for the Itanium processor. Itanium has the ability to power the so-called Business Critical Systems hardware for extremely demanding enterprise applications. However, Oracle said the chip line is about to die.

The companies’ lawyer met in the Santa Clara County Superior Court with Judge James Kleinberg presiding to discuss their side of the event. Others in the courtroom included Ann Livermore, HP board member and former enterprise business chief, and Oracle’s co-President Safra Catz. Catz and Livermore were the two key negotiators for the agreement. Livermore was to testify later in the day. Kleinberg is set to rule if the companies had a legally binding contract.

Jeff Thomas, HP’s lawyer, focused on the so-called Hurd Agreement wording, where the companies reiterated their partnership after Oracle hired Mark Hurd, former CEO for HP. HP also sued Hurd for breaking the confidentiality agreement.

Thomas and the lead lawyer for Oracle focused on one paragraph of the agreement, which read Oracle would continue to provide its product suite on the HP platform in a way that’s consistent with the existing partnership before Hurd’s hiring.

The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters has been adopted by many as a model summary manual of python's philosophy.  Though these statements should be considered more as guideline and not mandatory rules, developers worldwide find the poem to be on a solid guiding ground.

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

Visual Studio .NET is one of many tools available at your disposal for web development. But where some programs may focus on HTML coding or graphics, Visual Studio .NET is a complete tool set that can be used to not only create XML web services and ASP web applications, but desktop and mobile applications as well. So what are some features that are included in the latest release?

·         Visual J#. This is most well-known by developers who are well-versed in the language of Java. It is best used when building services via the .NET framework, or when building applications.

·         Smart Device Applications. This enables you to generate, repair, and install applications that can be used on smart phones, PDAs, and other devices.

·         ASP.NET Mobile Design. Allows for building web applications for not only PDAs and mobile phones, but pagers as well. This also allows a designer to manipulate the mobile Web form of an application.