Cleaning Up the Dirty-Data Junkyard

[dArKeR]

In Part 1 of this four-part series, NewsFactor's CIO Today Magazine discusses the obstacles CIOs encounter when they attempt to integrate applications without first solving their customer data-quality problems.

Part 2 examines the nature and scope of some of those challenging issues. In Part 3, we will take a look at some practical approaches to solving the dirty-data problem.

Two Paths to Purity
Organizations can choose one of two ways to address their customer-data cleanliness woes: purchase off-the-shelf products, such as those from Trillium, Firstlogic, Group 1 Software, Innovative Systems or DataFlux; or develop their own software.

Many firms favor building homegrown applications, says Gartner analyst Ted Friedman, who works with the research firm's business intelligence infrastructure team, even though they are not always the best solutions and tend to be expensive in the long run. "Organizations are investing a lot of time and effort without getting truly good return on their investment," he says.

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