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Monday, November 05, 2012

Chris Murphy

Should Sears CTO Be Building A Tech Startup?

Given all of the headwinds Sears faces, should its CTO be spending much of his time building a startup? Sears Holdings had operating losses four of the last five quarters. Sears chairman Eddie Lampert, whose hedge fund owns more than 60% of the company, started his chairman's letter back in February with this assessment: "Our poor financial results in 2011, culminating in a very poor fourth quarter, underscore the need to accelerate the transformation of Sears Holdings."

In that environment, launching a technology startup is risky, given the potential for distraction from meeting the IT needs of a $42 billion-a-year retail business that includes Sears and Kmart. With the MetaScale venture, CTO Phil Shelley is looking to take advantage of Sears' broad experience with using the Hadoop big data platform. MetaScale sells subscription services to manage large data sets using Hadoop, and it offers big data consulting.

Shelley doesn't see such a startup as risky. Lampert, he says, sets the expectation that executives need to make such moves. "It's a very innovative environment," Shelley says. "The concept of generating new business, a new business model, a whole new business, is very much encouraged."

Sears is doing cutting-edge work when it comes to Hadoop and big data management. Some of the most practical work--work that other big companies might buy as a service--is moving big batch processing data loads off of mainframes, cutting hours of processing time. Applied to Sears' own business, eliminating mainframes could save tens of millions of dollars.

But when it comes to applying big data tactics to change Sears, it feels like Sears could be doing more and moving faster.

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THIS EDITION

•	Why Sears Is Going All-In On Hadoop
•	6 Lies About Big Data
•	How To Secure Data As Networks Get Faster
•	Design on a Dime: 12-Step Plan to Cut Software Costs
•	Data Center Infrastructure: Market and Buyer Expectations
•	8 Cool Windows 8 Tablets
•	Data-Centric Security In A Mobile World
•	Online Marketing Summit San Diego

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Online Marketing Summit San Diego
Attend Online Marketing Summit San Diego, Feb. 11-13, and gather the insights and strategies you need to make the right online marketing choices to deliver the most value for your business. OMS San Diego offers three days of inspiration, connections, and practical learning. Register using code WETW01 and to secure the early bird rate on Conference Passes or a Free Expo Pass.
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Product Jungle

Monday, November 5, 2012

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