Klout uses Hadoop to crunch large volumes of data using clusters of commodity servers. Klout captures and processes over 3 billion signals a day and Hadoop is an excellent, horizontally scalable platform for just doing just that. Klout sought out a solution...

1.        Department Store Chain Speeds Reporting, Saves $600,000 a Year in Technology Costs : Florida-based Stein Mart, a large department store chain, wanted faster data reporting and new analysis capabilities. It switched...

Here are Vic Miles (Industry Technology Strategist within Microsoft’s Retail Industry Team) perspectives on the Microsoft Build conference highlights and what it means to the retail industry: (Thanks for sharing, Vic) 1. An innovation bridge -- Tablet...

Sign up kids to hear from thought leaders at TEDxRedmond —the conference organized by youth , for youth. Aimed at young people (families and adults are highly encouraged to attend) interested in helping the community and the world, TEDxRedmond is a unique...

SQL 2008 R2 Master Data Management from a Business Perspective This article helps business stakeholders understand how to determine the master data management needs of their organization. After reading this article, business stakeholders should be empowered...

  Department Store Chain Speeds Reporting, Saves $600,000 a Year in Technology Costs : Florida-based Stein Mart, a large department store chain, wanted faster data reporting and new analysis capabilities. It switched from an IBM-based business intelligence...

Potbelly Sandwich Works : Restaurant Boosts Revenues 2.5 Percent by Giving Performance Data to Managers : Potbelly Sandwich Works is a fast-growing restaurant company. But the information on which Potbelly personnel made business decisions was limited...

PivotViewer makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data on the web in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. By visualizing thousands of related items at once, users can see trends and patterns that would be hidden when looking at...

Whats OData The Open Data Protocol (OData) is a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today. OData does this by applying and building upon Web technologies...

This is a very informative video that features the folks from Extended Results talking about the Calendar Analytics tool in PowerPivot. Look for more BI videos from Roger Doherty on the Databound Channel.

I had a opportunity & fortune to collaborate with my colleagues in the Consumer Goods Industry team at Microsoft recently to work on a joint whitepaper on Enterprise Social Computing. The effort was sponsored by the GMA Information Systems Committee...

I have been looking for ways of finding alternatives to paper forms for signups, surveys and feedback. Digital alternatives for these forms would improve efficiencies for many businesses including retail, restaurants, hotels and schools. Digital forms...

Microsoft Business Intelligence delivers on the vision of “Pervasive Insight” as witnessed by the higher than average deployment of BI solutions recorded by our customers. By providing end user BI capabilities through familiar Microsoft Office experiences...

Stein Mart, a Tier One off-price department store chain, focuses on unique merchandise selection on a fast rotation with limited inventory on each item per store. With a business model that relies heavily on performance analytics and reporting, the 268...

Microsoft Corp. announced Monday that Target Corp. is running business-critical workloads for all its retail stores on 15,000 virtual machines using Microsoft virtualization and management technologies, giving its IT department greater agility and economies...

LINK “Pacific Sunwear was certainly one of the first retailers to bring Office SharePoint Server into the POS environment,” says Marc Huynen, Solution Architect at Neudesic. “It represented an imaginative leap on the company’s part—but one we were able...

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-18HPMSAppliancesPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases   There is a great retail story of early adoption in here:   The solution enables end users to share data analyses built with Microsoft’s...

This document provides architecture recommendations for building, deploying, and managing the Microsoft Branch Infrastructure solution in a retail environment. The guide covers the fundamentals of the branch office infrastructure and how the Microsoft...

Avoid the crazy mall crowds & chill out with Bing & Facebook to create the calmest shopping experience ever http://on.fb.me/hDvCwF ... And if you have to hit the malls use Bing’s new mall maps to Get in, get out, and avoid the crowds http://bit...

Some of the trends that we have noticed in the retail industry: 1.      Checkins to boost Foot Traffic and Customer Engagement: Sports Authority Check-In Promo Boosts Foot Traffic, Customer Engagement http://bit.ly/gmYgNX Social Point...

Retail U is your source for the latest IDEAS, INSIGHTS, INNOVATIONS, and business INTELLIGENCE shaping the retail technology industry. It’s all completely free, brought to you by thought-leaders from a cross-section of disciplines and organizations. From...

Free Download: The Windows Azure Platform: Articles from the Trenches http://bit.ly/az5Jl1 POS in the cloud: Interview with Johannes Schick, CEO, höltl Retail Solutions http://bit.ly/dCsDjO RT @ 5h15h : 360i Report on Mobile Shopping, Coupons & Barcodes...

    Today marks the general availability release of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail, the new Microsoft Dynamics ERP retail offering that provides mid-size and enterprise specialty retailers with an end-to-end solution connecting back-office...

Geek Squad—the customer support arm of electronics retailer Best Buy—wanted to cut the time that its field technicians needed to solve on-site customer issues. To do so, it created a knowledge base hosted on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and...

Save the Date for SharePoint Conference 2011, the premier worldwide conference dedicated to SharePoint and related technologies being held October 3-6, 2011 in Anaheim, California. SharePoint Conference 2011 will be the conference to learn more about...