Having worked for a LARGE financial institution for 5 years in the recent past, don't get me started on banks! :o)


>>>Not possessing any knowledge I find it hard to believe that MSFT doesnt have a good idea how many licences have been purchased in Latin america.
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>>I don't find this hard to believe at all.
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>>What I have found amazing is how little information companies manage to get from their data.
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>>Diane Swonk was the chief economist at Bank One when I was there, she was also the president/director of the National Association of Economists and I remember her saying that she believed the biggest challenge in business was the lack of information.
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>>In either this month's or last month's SQL Server magazine there was an article about re-structuring companies data because of all the disjointed data sets they tend to have which is not conducive to decision making.
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>>Microsoft was given as an example of a company facing this problem
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>Ms. Swonk's statement amazes me. If there is an industry that has data, it's the banking industry. Maybe they just haven't figured out how to use it right yet.
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>Mergers are probably part of the problem. I have been a Bank One customer for some time, including First Chicago before and Chase now. Bank One was a direct client (lockbox processing) when I was an independent.