Microsoft and Big Data

While I was thinking about researching on Microsoft Big Data strategy, I just read an article about it - Microsoft's big data strategy: Democratize, in-memory, and the cloud - on ZDnet.

So what is Microsoft strategy on Big Data? In short, Microsoft promotes Big Data in 2 fronts: Business Intelligence formed over more than a decade of being in that market; and those of its other lines of business, including online services, gaming and cloud platforms.

In specific, there are following products related to Big Data:

SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse

"Data Explorer" add-in for Excel

Hortwonworks Data Platform (HDP) for Windows

While the above products are all impressive and can compete with other companies, the Data Explorer is potentially adopted by more users since Excel is so popular in the office software market. 

As this Microsoft blog said, "Data Explorer enhances the self-service BI experience in Excel by simplifying data discovery and access to a broad range of public and enterprise data sources, enabling richer insights from data that has traditionally been difficult for users to get to. With Data Explorer, users can now quickly and easily import data from a variety of sources, including Web, Excel, Text, Database and Azure. Access to non-traditional sources such as Active Directory, Facebook and big data solutions like Hadoop are now within the reach of any user. Connecting directly to data from the web is easy and intuitive. Filtering and transforming your data can be done in just a few clicks and importing your final data into Excel is straightforward. "

You can check out the video below to see how Data Explorer works.

Computer Trading by using Big Data?

In the FT's article - FBI joins SEC in computer trading probe - on Mar.5, it told the following detail:

"Authorities are exploring potential holes in the system, including new algorithms referred to as “news aggregation” that search the internet, news sites and social media for selected keywords, and fire off orders in milliseconds. The trades are so quick, often before the information is widely disseminated, that authorities are debating whether they violate insider trading rules, the people familiar with the matter said."

It makes me wondering if above technology-driven trading trick was using Big Data technology. If some people or companies are able to use Big Data to generate benefits for other people or customers, there must be some guys who can take advantage of Big Data to make money for themselves.

Why did Big Data make a bad thing so easily?

• Big Data especially people's social network information from Internet are easily be accessed and consumed.
• There are so many Open Source technologies which can help on processing the Big Data.
• The cloud computing make Big Data crunching faster.
• The fast-growing IT technology including hardware and software drive the Big Data processing cost lower.

There is no way to stop people to access the Big Data just like no way to stop the data getting big.  Like fighting computer virus, people has to keep their anti-virus software updated. So for the above computer trading case, FBI and SEC have to get them equipped with Big Data technology to fight those guys who also know the Big Data.