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Acxiom Grid Innovation Wins 'Radical Data Warehousing' Award

Acxiom Corp has received the 2004 Best Practices Award for "Radical Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence" from The Data Warehousing Institute for its innovation in the use of Grid computing applications.

Sponsored annually by The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), the Best Practices Awards recognize companies that have demonstrated best practices in developing, executing and maintaining business intelligence and data warehousing applications.

Acxiom company leader Charles D. Morgan said being honored by The Data Warehousing Institute is a great achievement and recognizes Acxiom's commitment to technological innovation.

"This is a tribute to Acxiom's associates and their pioneering spirit," Morgan said. "While many industry experts had believed such advanced technology could only be found in scientific labs and university research centers, Acxiom succeeded in bringing Grid technology into the mainstream to benefit our clients. Acxiom's Grid innovations redefine how data is managed, allowing companies to enjoy much faster and more timely access to customer information to improve their business and marketing decisions."

Brenda Woodbridge, general manager of TDWI, said that this year's competition was especially close. "As usual, we had a considerable number of outstanding applications related to innovative solutions, but a few stood head and shoulders above the rest; this year's winners definitely epitomize the best in the industry today," she said.

Acxiom has been recognized as one of the first companies in the world to fully embrace Grid computing on a massive scale, deploying the environment in 2001 and expanding it ever since. Alex Dietz, who leads the company's Products and Infrastructure Technology Organization, said that Grid computing, the sharing of high-end PCs across a network that functions as one large supercomputer, is at the heart of Acxiom's recent technological advancements.

"Acxiom has, in the past year, initiated a complete enterprise overhaul through the development of our Customer Information Infrastructure (CII), an innovative data processing system that utilizes Grid computing technology to significantly improve processing efficiency," Dietz said.

More than 85 TDWI award nominations were judged by a panel of experts, including consultants, industry analysts, Business Intelligence Journal editors and Institute Fellows. Winners were chosen based on the clear demonstration that their data warehouse and business intelligence projects were truly innovative solutions to common problems faced by data warehousing practitioners.