The irony is not lost on me.
In my last post here (in October 2010!), I wrote about how Datawatch was focusing on the healthcare industry. Well, since then I’ve had my own focus on the healthcare industry.
You see, since my last post, I’ve become a cancer patient.
Shortly after my last post I began to feel that something wasn’t quite right, but it wasn’t until March that I was diagnosed. In June I began a regime that included both chemotherapy and radiation treatments. As this was a head and neck cancer, the treatment was a difficult process and the recovery from the treatment itself continues to have its challenges, though I’m sure that cancer in any location is no fun. Both physically and mentally, this has been a trying time for me and my family, and I’m sorry, but writing about software and techniques has not been a priority for me of late.
But the mental fog has lifted somewhat, and I’m beginning to feel much better physically now, eating normally and getting regular exercise, so it’s time to attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy.
During my absence from ExcelWithMonarch.com, there have been a number of developments that we can discuss. For today, let’s have a look and perhaps you can take a moment to write a comment to share your thoughts.
New Management
Perhaps the most important change is the new management team at Datawatch. Almost exactly a year ago today, Mr. Michael Morrison was named as the new President and Chief Executive Officer of the company. Since then, the company has made a number of changes that the market clearly seems to believe have improved its fortunes. As if to reinforce the point, new partnering announcements are practically regular events.
The once annual Datawatch User Conference has been announced, and will take place in Las Vegas this year. Will you be attending?
A wholesale makeover was performed on the main Datawatch web site, and there’s now a focus on the new terminology, “report analytics”, which to me better represents the goal of the company’s flagship software than did the “data mining” terminology. Of course, it should be of no surprise that the new terminology would be my preference as I’ve been espousing Monarch’s analytical abilities online on this site since 2007, and elsewhere well before that.
Monarch v11
A long awaited upgrade to Monarch arrived last year, and due to a number of lingering issues, a few patches (upgrades) have already been released, the latest bringing Monarch to v11.1. Have you implemented v11? If so, what are your thoughts? What do you like? What could be improved?
Time Hasn’t Cured All
Though over a year has passed since my last post here, I’m certain that not all of our data problems have been solved. What problems do you continue to battle? How do you plan to overcome the roadblocks that you face this year? Will Monarch become more a part of your solutions package, or less so? If I were to hazard a guess I’d say that there’s just as much of an opportunity for Monarch to be a critical part of your toolkit now as there ever has been, in fact perhaps even more so. With the technical improvements developed with Monarch v11 in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, a new foundation has been established for a whole new generation of Monarch; one that will hopefully add many new useful abilities that will make each new version leaps and bounds better than its predecessors.
A Year Later
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but in the year that’s passed I don’t see that the need for, nor the benefits of, Monarch have diminished or have been replaced by something better. In fact, the opposite has occurred. Monarch v11 offers the ability to work with even greater data sets, and while it might not have immediately added a cartful of obviously new features, it has been rebuilt in such a way, if I understand it correctly, that facilitates future development. It’s going to be exciting to see what happens with it. I don’t have a crystal ball to gaze into to foretell the upcoming year, but I think that it will be an exciting time. Will this be the year in which you choose to excel with Monarch?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Welcome back, Sandy!! You’ve been missed.
I pray that your recovery continues onward and upward!!
With regards to Monarch, I have to admit some major functional difficulties using early releases of ver.11 and installed ver.11.1 as soon as it was released recently.
Thanks very much Scott!
Yes, I did my best to catch up on the trials and tribulations of the v11 release after the fact, and I know that it wasn’t as smooth as was hoped. I know that the v11.1 patch is really quite new, but have you found that is resolved many if not all, and for that matter, perhaps all, of the lingering problems that you’d previously encountered?
Hi Sandy,
It is wonderful to see you back on the site. I can only imagine what you have been through these past 16 months. You have my best wishes for all good things ahead – both personally and professionally.
Kind Regards,
Carol Giadone
Thank you so much Carol! I really appreciate your taking the time to both visit my site and comment.
Don’t be a stranger ’round here!