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Microsoft Codename Dallas: The “Big D” is a Big Deal

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Roger Jennings over at Oakleaf systems published a handy, illustrated walk through of Codename “Dallas” today.  Definitely check it out.  Dallas was unveiled at PDC09, and is huge evolutionary step… not just for Microsoft or the tech industry, but across industries.  I think of Dallas as two things:

  1. A portal for discovering, exploring, and consuming data as a service in real time. 
  2. An open catalog, marketplace, and business model for people with data to provide it to people who need data (both public and commercial data)

The motivation behind Dallas is simple: We’re surrounded by data these days, and more is created every second.  It’s a truism these days to say that we often have more data but less information and insight, because we’re overwhelmed with data.  Despite the growth in data, putting it to use in interesting, relevant ways is too often still harder than it should be.

Why should anyone these days have to buy a CD or DVD with a data set on it, wait for it to be shipped, and then stand up a database server, load the data, explore the data, and only then build an app to use the data in some interesting way? 

In a world where cloud computing is a reality, why not just find the data online, explore it online to ensure it’s what you need, and then build your app to connect to the data, mash-up style?  Oh yeah, and only pay for the amount of data you actually use?  That’s what Dallas allows.

Dallas was just unveiled last month, but the data available through it is growing.  In particular, the US government is providing a significant amount of data.  If you’re a provider of data today, Dallas is definitely  something to look at carefully.  And if you have data that you’re not providing today, Dallas may represent a new business opportunity.

For additional information on Project Dallas, see these links below:

Technorati Tags: Dallas,Data-as-a-Service

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