A PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE TO BUSINESS ANALYTICS: Using Data Analysis Tools to Improve Your Organization’s Decision Making and Strategy

11

Data Software

“Data analysis is about creating bits of information from bytes of data.”

“It used to be that you were anointed in alphas¹ and now you are anointed in software.”

—H. T. David

The electronic digital computer was conceived to solve systems of linear equations. Figure 11.1 illustrates the crude beginnings of a multi-billion-dollar industry that has dramatically influenced business and society. Shortly after their birth, computers, now the size of a room, became programmable, a phenomenon that spawned an evolution in analytics software.² After their introduction in the late 1970s, the ascendancy of personal computers further promoted ...