Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Closer to liftoff…

This week we officially launched our public beta, and itimage was one of those moments where you’ve pushed so hard running on adrenaline that when you’ve reached that summit you collapse because you can finally sleep a good sleep – if only for a moment.  With the beta launch we have people from around the world enjoying predictive analytics in the cloud via Predixion Insight.  It’s exciting watching from behind the scenes as customers launch asynchronous predictive tasks ranging in size from a few kilobytes to 100 megs.  The machinations of a Rube Goldberg contraption comes to mind as the pieces of the system coordinate – a user presses a button causing their data to be launched to the image cloud while simultaneously they are automatically provisioned across an array of servers.  The data shuttled seamlessly and invisibly between tasks on their behalf being dissected and analyzed before being dropped into a predictive report right back on their desktop. 

The movement from development to beta deployment is really wonderful for me personally.  If you haven’t yet seen it, go to our website and click on play video to get an overview of the company.  If there’s one word I can say about that piece of “marketing,” it is that it is sincere.   Go ahead – go watch it.  This is something I’ve been working toward a long time.  We’re releasing a version 1 product and we have a lot to do to fully reach our goals, but right now, any user, anywhere, can access powerfulimage easy-to-use predictive analytics without having to jump through hoops for procurement, acquisition, installation, management, etc. etc. etc.   By creating an Excel-native, subscription-based predictive service, we’re taking the traditional barriers barring people from even opening the door to predictive analytics and slashing them to the ground.  

So I was going to write a longer post explaining some more details about the product, but you should try it now (and anyway, Bogdan already wrote a great post with some feature details)  You can watch a demo that gives a lightning fast overview of the product here and then go download and enroll for the “free trial” beta.  I have it on good authority that there may be some interesting beta events for accomplished users, and you still have the opportunity to get in early, so don’t wait!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Predixion on the brink….

   I officially started my career as “founding CTO” with Predixion on January 6, 2010, and now, just 7 months later we are on the brink of launching the VIP beta of our new product and service, Predixion Insight, on August 2.  WithLG1 a development team of only 5 people we’ve created, what I think, is a truly disruptive entry in the predictive analytics space, and we’re just getting started.

It’s been a very exciting time – meeting the co-founders of Predixion, deciding to venture off from Microsoft to start something new based on the ideas developed over the past several years, recruiting the best development team you could ask for, filming corporate videos at my house, meeting with customers, partners, and venture capitalists – there hasn’t been a boring day yet!

This last week we’ve moved to a new office space in Redmond and wrapped up the bits for our VIP beta.  This beta is limited to only 12 select people.  We ran two incredible online demos and some feedback we received: “let me say that I loved it”, “Can't wait to play with the product!”, “Based on what I saw yesterday, Insight is more like a coral reef than a warm bath!”

Anyway don’t be worried that you will be left out because you’re not part of our VIP beta – we are quickly filling up our next phase of the beta offered on a first come-first serve basis.   This phase will be launched on August 16th and you can sign up on our website.  We’ve been working hard and fast at making a product that you can use immediately, every day, without boundaries, and we’re on the brink of delivering it to you.  Over the next few weeks we will be creating collateral materials that make using Predixion Insight even easier.  Stay tuned, true believers, you’ll like what we have coming!