How Startups Are Analyzing You On Social Networks and Protecting You At Airports

Remember that scene in the Shawshank Redemption in which a pitiful old Brooks declares, “The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry?” As it turns out, things have gotten even faster since a redeemed Andy Dufresne famously dropped to his knees outside in the rain.

Settling an argument with a friend? Pull Wikipedia up on your phone. Tracking the NFL playoffs? There’s an app for that. Running a startup? That’s where SAP HANA comes in.

Operating a business at the “speed of thought” means dealing with risks and opportunities that present themselves in real-time. Whether it’s a “superstorm” depleting your entire inventory or customer feedback coming at you via millions of tweets, business “intelligence” is only intelligent if you have the right tools to use it.

The SAP Startup Focus Program was launched with the big data startup in mind. The goal? To help these up-and-comers tackle the big challenges presented by big data. With SAP HANA, the breakthrough in-memory database and computing platform from SAP, startups are building innovative products that empower business owners to do everything from protect you at airports to analyze vast streams of social media data.

And more and more startups are beginning to recognize the power of HANA as the “big data platform.”

“HANA has been more stable and reliable than any of us expected from a cutting-edge technology,” says Satya Krishnaswamy, CEO & Founder of social analytics and engagement platform NextPrinciples.

Krishnaswamy has combined NextPrinciples’ Insight-to-Action Social CRM and SAP HANA to gain unique insight into a customer’s social and enterprise identity. And with so many startups establishing sizeable followings on Facebook and Twitter, the innovation makes sense. Aggregating, analyzing, and acting on social media interactions with the help of SAP HANA technology and the SAP Startup Focus Program yielded a 3000% performance boost for Krishnaswamy’s business (and likely a new appreciation for harnessing the power of big data).

And if airport security has ever been one of your concerns in a post-9/11 world, you’ll be happy to know that SAP Startup Focus companies are already blazing trails in security as well.

“Insider threats come in many shapes and forms at airports, but the perpetrator is often the same: an intelligent airport employee,” according to AlertEnteprise’s V.P. of Marketing, Pan Kamal. “AlertEnterprise leverages SAP HANA to deliver the fastest identification and response to threats, preventing the dangers from blended threats that would otherwise go unnoticed.”

So the next time you log on to Facebook or moan about the TSA at airports, you might just realize that startups are using SAP HANA technology to change the way you live.