The geek in me was hooked and I wasn’t the only one. Software training courses can be a bit tedious at times, the mornings tend to drag and there is usually a rush for the coffee machine at the first break. Not this one – 10:30 came and everyone stayed at their desks playing with this awesome new toy. Venn diagrams, pie charts, cutting segments as fast as you could think of clever criteria. “This is soooo cool!” said the bearded guy at the back. The girl next to me was cross-tabbing up a storm:

• Gender = Male
• Age between 30 and 35
• Marital Status = Single
• Salary > $100,000
• City = Chicago
• Calculate!

“Look, I found me some husbands!” she exclaimed with glee. She was disappointed to hear that the training data was anonymized, but at least she found a product she could love.

The landscape has changed in ten years, but if anything, it has got more exciting for developers building marketing tools. More channels, more data feeds, machine learning opportunities, not to mention new coding technologies like HTML5 that mean we can build powerful analytics tools that look great and are extremely user friendly.

What’s more, with our new Real Time Digital Rules Engine, we are finally in a position to solve problems that our customers have been battling with for years. This includes a few problems that will benefit all of us internet users – “I just bought that tablet, why is every website I visit trying to sell it to me?!”

Alterian has come a long way and our pedigree is strong. I look around me in Development and see faces with decades of experience, and youngsters that are keeping us fresh. We understand our market, we have a proven and resilient platform, and we are back to building awesome products that I’m positive our customers will love.