Fern Halper, Ph.D is a partner at Hurwitz & Associates, a consulting, market research, and analyst firm.  Dr. Halper has more than 20 years experience in data analysis, market analysis, and strategy development.  She is a thought leader in the area of advanced information technologies including business analytics, text analytics, and cloud computing.

Prior to joining Hurwitz & Associates, Fern was a senior VP at Hurwitz Group.  She has also held key positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies, where she was responsible for developing award winning data analysis systems for understanding customer activity and predicting churn.  She has also directed market research, strategy development, and product-line planning efforts.

Dr. Halper has published numerous articles on data analysis and has done extensive research, writing, and speaking on the topic of text analytics.  She has taught courses on the use of information technology in business at several universities.  She is also the co-author of four books:  SOA for Dummies 2^nd edition, Service Management for Dummies, Information Management for Dummies, and Cloud Computing for Dummies.  She holds a B.A. from Colgate University and a Ph.D from Texas A&M University.

Fern is a co-author of Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies, 2^nd Edition (Wiley Publishing 2009), Service Management For Dummies (Wiley Publishing 2009), Cloud Computing For Dummies (Wiley Publishing 2009) and Information on Demand For Dummies (Wiley Publishing 2008).