PenguinSoft Consulting Ltd
 
  About Mary Whitehorn
 

Mark Whitehorn is very much the public face of PenguinSoft but, in fact, the company consists of Mark Whitehorn and Mary Whitehorn. With only a single character of difference between them, one of them keeps a low profile in order to prevent confusion.


Professor MARK WHITEHORN

Prof. Mark WhitehornProfessor Mark Whitehorn is a well-recognised commentator on the computer world, publishing articles, white papers and books. He has been writing about computers since 1987 and his column in Personal Computer World was one of the longest-running database columns in the world. He specialises in database technology, data warehousing and OLAP and has written eleven books – several co-authored with Bill Marklyn, the designer of Microsoft’s Access. Their first book, Inside Relational Databases, is a best seller (for a database book at least) and is now into its third edition.  Fast Track to MDX, was written in collaboration with Robert Zare and Mosha Pasumanski: Mosha is one of the originators of the MDX language.

Mark is also much sought after as a speaker at conferences; his skills as a communicator and data practitioner have led to a rather schizophrenic career.

On the academic side he is Professor of Analytics at the University of Dundee where he teaches a Masters degree in Business Intelligence.  This MSc teaches the fundamentals of data handling for transactional processing (relational structures) and for analysis (multi-dimensional structures).  The approach is avowedly vendor neutral in the sense that it does not actively support one vendor’s approach over any other. Instead it presents the main approaches that are currently taken to BI and explains their pros and cons.  Since its inception in 2010 the course has proved extremely popular.  Many of our students are already working in the field of BI in the business and commercial world and also attract ambitious graduates seeking to do well in those areas or in research.  More about the MSc course.

Mark is also a research associate at the University of Cambridge where he works on the application of BI to scientific data.  His enthusiasm for education applies to gaining as well as disseminating information and, over the years, he has managed to acquire three degrees each in a different discipline – biochemistry, cytogenetics and computer science.

On the more practical side he runs a consultancy company which specialises in database design and data warehousing. He also designed and teaches courses for QA, the UK-based training company: topics include database design, data warehousing, dimensional modelling and MDX.

 
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