KNIME, or how to succeed by making the difficult easy
LOOKING FOR DATA SCIENCE “DIAMONDS”
One part of our job is to stay up to date on all the technologies and solutions available on the market, so we can get to know them and advise clients on which one is best suited for each problem.
Due to the sheer number of tools and solutions on the market, we feel compelled to filter based on the major consulting firms (and opinion leaders of our industry). Perhaps the best known is Gartner, who in its “magic quadrants” positions different solutions (for integration, technology, business intelligence, advanced analytics, etc.) based on two parameters: completeness of vision (or the ability to anticipate or adapt to the market) and ability to execute (or the ability to bring developments to market).
Based on these two parameters, it establishes 4 groups: tools focused on a specific niche (niche players), visionaries (visionaries), tools aspiring to be among the industry leaders (challengers), and industry leaders (leaders)
In the field of advanced data analytics (which Gartner, among others, now calls data science), this quadrant guides us in identifying the leading solutions, and confirms the commitment we have been building for some time toward these technologies. Specifically, it places KNIME (by the way, the “K” is silent) among the leading solutions in the industry.
KNIME AS A DATA SCIENCE TOOL
Honestly, this comes as no surprise to us. Setting aside the fact that Gartner doesn’t take open-source tools like R or Python into account, we have always found KNIME to be an intuitive, simple tool with enormous potential, and time has confirmed this intuition. We believed that KNIME, with its ease of integration, its simplicity in building complex data flows to extract valuable insights, its ability to deploy powerful models within what is known as Machine Learning in just a couple of clicks, its strong support network from the software itself and the community built around it—in short, with its ability to make the difficult easy—could earn a place among the industry leaders. And that’s exactly what happened.
Perhaps its marketing approach holds back the tool’s positioning (an area where Rapid Miner has gained ground over the past year), but we still believe that its fast learning curve, its scalability and integration, together with its potential for applying advanced analytics, make KNIME the perfect ally for our companies to make the leap, just as Gartner has done, from being data analysts to a more holistic business vision that the industry demands, becoming data scientists.
LISDATA BACKS KNIME
While keeping in mind that applying Data Science methods requires actually knowing Data Science!! (an obvious point that isn’t always taken into account), KNIME is a fantastic tool for implementing solutions. The leading solutions in the industry are increasingly setting themselves apart from the rest, and KNIME has managed to earn its place among the greats. We expected nothing less.