The Future of Application Development Is Here and it Is Cognitive-First

Dating back to my days studying AI as a graduate student in the 1980s, I have thought that the potential for smart machines was greater than most could imagine. Today, the volume of data, both human- and machine-generated has exploded, and organizations are realizing those organizations that harness this data for business benefit first, will have a massive competitive advantage. At the same time, finally computing power is great enough and inexpensive enough that machine learning can actually be implemented to solve real-world business challenges. The hurdle today for most organizations is that they can’t afford the massive cost of an army of data scientists required to build machine learning capabilities for themselves, at least until now…

Not long after I joined Progress, I saw clearly that our company had an enormous opportunity to democratize the power of machine learning so that any organization could reap its benefits. Progress has always been in the business of providing the platform and tools to build and deploy mission-critical business applications. As the future of applications is cognitive-first, Progress will offer the best platform for building these. Progress’ existing technologies provide important foundational elements – front-end application development tooling, mobility, back end application services, data connectivity and more. Machine learning was the missing component.

Today, I’m excited to say we’ve hit the first major milestone in delivering on our strategy. We have acquired DataRPM, a leader in predictive maintenance and machine learning.

The DataRPM platform automates predictive modeling, leveraging proprietary Meta Learning capabilities to increase quality, accuracy and timeliness of equipment failure predictions by more than 300 percent. The technology enables customers such as Jaguar, Samsung and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to predict and prevent asset failures, reduce maintenance costs, optimize inventory and resources, predict quality issues, forecast warranty and insurance claims and manage risks effectively.

Imagine, analyzing a massive volume of data, with hundreds of different variables, concurrently, within hours and leveraging that data to drive the business applications of the future? This is what Progress will deliver and we’ll do it in a way that is easy and affordable for businesses of any size. Industrial IoT is the first use case that we are addressing with DataRPM, and over time we will apply the technology to other use cases as well. 

We will continue to share details on our strategy, as they unfold. Check back in at any time to see how Progress is driving the future of application development forward.