The first meeting of the Boston Big Data Summit was held yesterday. Since the announcement on October 2, the event has had a great reception. Just over a hundred people attended, with an almost even split between “end users” and “vendors.” By a significant margin, the vendors were entrepreneurs or self described “startup types.” Many established players were also represented in the audience.

The program featured a keynote speech by Curt Monash, a leading analyst and strategic advisor to the software industry. This was followed by a lively panel discussion with Ellen Rubin, founder and vice president of products at Cloudswitch; David Cohen, chief architect for the Cloud Infrastructure Group at EMC Corporation; and Larry Dennison, president and founder of Lightwolf Technologies.

The Boston area has long had a tradition of nurturing entrepreneurship in “big iron” and enterprise class products, and the audience yesterday reflected that tradition. Late in September, Bob Zurek and I met to discuss the possibility of setting up this forum. We recognized that there were no technical forums that were geared towards Database Management Systems (DBMS) and Information Management (IM) professionals in the Boston area, and felt that there was an acute need for one.

In setting up the Boston Big Data Summit, we had a simple mission: to create a technical forum for DBMS and IM professionals, and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in these areas, through networking, debate and the sharing of experience. The forums would necessarily be somewhat geeky (that’s what you get when you have two geeks running the show).

The goal was to make them accessible to everyone at no cost. Our sponsors Foley Hoag, Infobright, Expressor Software, and Kalido made the event possible, and we intend to continue to fund this venture through corporate sponsorships.

Yesterday’s event is, hopefully, the first of a regular series of events that we will be organizing. The next event is scheduled for sometime in January, and we would like the one after that, in the spring, to be a day long event with multiple speakers, panelists and discussion areas. The excellent reception to yesterday’s event is a clear indication of the need in this area.

The keynote speech reflected Curt’s extensive experience and depth of knowledge in the field of Big Data, analytics, and the companies and technologies in the space. Curt described the market and provided three different ways of segmenting the market for these products, a segmentation that was the subject of much discussion after … Next Page »

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Today marked a milestone in the legislation relating to non-competes in Massachusetts. The Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development held its public hearing on two house bills that would attempt to redefine the rules governing “restrictive employee covenants and non-compete agreements.”

This effort began in early January when Rep. William N. Brownsberger (24th Middlesex District) filed House Bill No. 1794, which would effectively prohibit restrictive employee covenants in line with similar provisions in the State of California. Rep. Lori Ehrlich (8th Essex District) also filed House Bill No. 1799, which made significant clarifications to non-compete agreements in line with the State of Oregon. Subsequently, compromise legislation was drafted by Rep. Brownsberger and Rep. Ehrlich.

A good summary of the salient points of this bill can be found at the Trade Secret and Noncompete Blog that is run by Russell Beck of the Foley and Lardner law firm, who participated in the drafting of this legislation.

The hearings on non-competes began with introductions by Rep. Ehrlich and Rep. Brownsberger, who cited complaints over abusive and over-reaching non-compete agreements. They highlighted the fact that the current law is over 200 years old and the rewrite has been long overdue. Attorney Russell Beck and Robert Mantell of the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association provided a detailed summary of the compromise legislation and described the key provisions of the bill.

At one end of the spectrum, the committee heard from those who made the argument that the original Brownsberger-Jehlen Bill No. 1794 was “the only ethical thing to do.” The committee also heard testimony from those who felt that the “200 years of jurisprudence” was perfectly adequate and did not need any change.

Up until now, the discussion of these changes has been largely in the blogosphere, and the participants represented members of the high technology sectors of the industry. At the hearing however, members of the non-high technology sectors and small businesses presented strong argument against the proposed changes.

“Talented individuals are leaving the state in large numbers because they see non-competes as unfair,” said one concerned individual who favored changing the current law. “I am willing and able to work but no one will hire me because of the … Next Page »

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