(but You May Not Know Why)

July 9 2007 (Computerworld) ## Information Technology world megastars over the past four decades are easy to name. The achievements of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Scott NcNealy, Larry Ellison, Linus Torvalds, and others are well known. But of course there were many more who helped to turn Information Technology (of few years ago) into an operational tool and a ubiquitous requirement in companies nowadays. Computerworld has listed the personalities that deserve a higher recognition for their contributions to the global success of Information Technology.

Who: Bill Inmon (PHD Brasil consultant and advisor.)

What/where: CEO, Inmon Data Systems Inc.

Why: Coined the term "data warehouse" in 1990 and is considered the father of the $28 billion industry. Inmon defined a data warehouse as a place where information is subject-specific, integrated, time-dependent and nonvolatile -- that is, more data can be added, but old data never changes. He advocates that businesses should have one data warehouse from which one creates data marts*. A prolific writer, Inmon has published more than 650 articles and 46 books so far.

(*) A Data Mart is a subset of data warehouse data. Usually, data mart data refer to a specific subject (e.g. Sales, Stock, Controlling) or to different levels of summarization (e.g. Annual Sales, Monthly Sales, Sales over the past 5 years) focusing on one or more specific areas. The data are sourced from the DW, denormalized, and indexed to support intensive querying. Data marts extract and adjust parts of a DW to the specific requirements of groups/departments.

Who else: Carol Bartz, Dan Bricklin, Edgard (Ted) Codd, John J. Cullinane, Whitfield Diffie, H. Ross Perot, Jon Postel, Dennis Ritchie, Alan Shugart.

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