BI4Lunch

Information access applications will drive growth for the business intelligence (BI), search, and discovery markets, according to a recent IDC study. The study finds that organizations have discovered wide gaps in their business intelligence, and increasingly require unified access to all of their information. The recent rise in demand for unified access to information has spawned the creation of new, innovative software applications that combine data and content from multiple sources.

"The content markets took off in 2005, growing at over 35%. Organizations now realize that they must have a complete and up-to-the-minute view of the state of their business. Responding to this need, search and discovery application vendors have developed new approaches that unify access to both data and content. In the process, they have begun to muscle their way into the business intelligence market. It will be interesting to see who will dominate this new unified access market", says IDC

The study reveals that business intelligence vendors will be adding content technologies such as categorization, fuzzy matching, and text analytics to their applications through acquisitions and partnerships with content vendors. The study finds that while content vendors clearly have the edge in functionality, business intelligence vendors have the greater market share. IDC predicts that this will lead to a convergence of these two markets and technologies. Meanwhile, the study indicates that database vendors have been slower to recognize that they are missing pieces needed to achieve unified access to information.

IDC added, "Both content and business intelligence/database vendors need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their technologies and the synergy that combining them provides. Both sets of vendors also need to move from the hype to the hard facts in educating the marketplace. An educated marketplace that understands the different approaches to information access, discovery, and analysis will shorten the sales cycle and boost sales."

Posted by metrics2 at 08:21 AM | Permalink

BEZ Systems, a player in the emerging market for Proactive Performance Management (PPM) solutions has raised $7.5 Million in preferred financing from proven and successful software industry investors.

At the core of the PPM platform is a profiling and prediction engine that gathers performance data from the environment and continuously builds and calibrates individual service delivery profiles by user-defined lines-of-business. These comprehensive profiles measure current vs. planned service delivery and can be analyzed in real time to provide near term forward-looking views of possible service breaches that help IT management understand and manage change by anticipating performance problems before they become major performance crises. 

BEZProphet helps database managers proactively align service delivery with business requirements. It empowers DBAs to manage future change, set realistic expectations, justify corrective actions and help ensure the delivery of consistent, uninterrupted data service to the business at the lowest cost.

Posted by metrics2 at 12:01 PM | Permalink

Denodo Technologies is a specialist in real-time information integration based on EII (Enterprise Information Integration) and Web Automation technologies. Its technology stands out because it is the only one that enables integration of data from any source on the Internet: everything from dynamic Web sites to Web services, including RSS feeds, all independent of the data format and structure. 

The company offers solutions for Web Automation, Unified Client View, real-time Control Panels, Virtual Data Repositories, Mobile Services or voice portals on real-time data, Comparative Buying or standardization of catalogs and Information Integration Solutions for different vertical industries. 

Denodo has developed an Operational BI platform based on its EII technology (Enterprise Information Integration) and incorporated it into its Competitive Intelligence solution. This has yielded a unified platform that supports Operational BI and Competitive Intelligence in the same platform, enabling companies to make more accurate and better grounded decisions by providing real-time access to both business operations data stored in their own systems and up-to-date business-related information from external sources such as the Internet. Moreover, the platform can be integrated with third-party applications and solutions such as traditional Business Intelligence solutions.

Posted by metrics2 at 05:14 PM | Permalink

The new WebFOCUS Performance Management Framework 3.1 Introduces New Features Including Predictive Analysis and Forecasting, Alert Management, and Business-Process Management.

• Predictive analysis and forecasting that allows any user to apply predictive analysis to any metric set, designing a view that shows historical metrics and predicts future achievement using standard patterns
• Performance correlation capabilities that gives users the ability to view any two metrics or objectives in a manner that helps determine if there is a relationship between the two; this capability can be used to help determine if there is a real cause-and-effect relationship and, when planning, the results can be used to influence how targets are set
• Boardroom quality strategy map, based on industry standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) technology that allows direct access to the cascade of scorecards in the system via hyperlinks and pop-up menus
• Business-process management support that lets users align objectives or goals to core business processes and link those processes to supporting documentation, such as an operational WebFOCUS report
• Scorecarding cascading that lets users organize scorecards in a hierarchical linkage, allowing them to drill up and down through various scorecards in the organization
• The ability to publish unlimited public views to deliver performance dashboards to all stakeholders in an organization, including executives, managers, and employees, as well as board members, partners, and citizens outside of the organization
• Alert management, which implements WebFOCUS ReportCaster alerts via an intuitive user interface model; users can directly add, change, or delete existing alerts and view any fired alert history on demand, allowing users to track the history for management or compliance reporting
• Enhanced automatic data security that automatically filters data for users by values on any single dimension; this capability can be specified for individual users or groups to set the level of their data access

Posted by metrics2 at 05:02 PM | Permalink

Verint Systems has announced the introduction of Customer Interaction Analytics (CI Analytics), a new enterprise analytics offering that combines platform-agnostic speech analytics with Interaction Intelligence™ methodology to help organizations enhance customer retention and satisfaction, increase first call resolution and improve sales and self service effectiveness. CI Analytics operates independently of call recording infrastructure that may already be deployed in the enterprise. Designed to be delivered as a managed service via a network of certified consulting partners, CI Analytics is ideally suited for large enterprises with traditionally high volumes of customer interactions.

CI Analytics is built on Verint speech analytics and expertise in customer behavior analysis, business process optimization and operational transformation techniques developed by working with leading enterprises around the world. This unique combination of technology and methodology enables enterprises to identify their most important interactions and analyze their true impact on customer relationships. Armed with this intelligence, CI Analytics then determines a new approach to these “moment of truth” interactions that promotes greater customer centricity and better business outcomes.

Posted by metrics2 at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Embarcadero Technologies, whose software manages data for big corporations, said on Thursday it had agreed to be acquired for about $234 million by a private equity group. The all cash offer from Thoma Cressey Equity Partners represents a 29% premium over Embarcadero closing stock price on Wednesday.

The company will replace Chief Executive Stephen R. Wong with Raj Sabhlok after the deal is complete and will go private. Sabhlok currently serves as senior vice president of operations. The company revenue during the first six months of this year was $29.5 million. Net income was $2.3 million during that time, according to the company financial statements.

Embarcadero key product line includes ER/Studio, DT/Studio, DBArtisan, Rapid SQL and Performance Center.

Posted by metrics2 at 02:06 PM | Permalink

QlikTech, a provider of in-memory reporting and analysis solutions, today announced the completion of benchmarking tests of QlikView 7.5 on HP Integrity and Pr oLiant servers. The benchmarking is available at http://www.qliktech.com/hpwhitepaper.

QlikView running on HP servers can load 1 billion records. Tested platforms achieved 1 billion record loads with instant to near-instant response times. Performance testing showed that HP Integrity servers (Superdome ) are uniquely equipped to handle extremely heavy loads of large applications (500 million and 1 billion) with many concurrent users.

Other findings include:

• QlikView’s performance scales linearly with data.  QlikView scales very linearly as more data is added into the application. Fifty concurrent users were tested clicking every 5 seconds on two data sets; on 30 and 100 million records and on 500 million and 1 billion records.
• QlikView running on HP servers scales to handle a large number of users. 1000 simulated concurrent users were tested on a medium sized application of 30 million records. Test results prove that simultaneous users can be easily supported without sacrificing response times. 
• QlikView’s caching features improve performance. As users click on selections, the results are cached in-memory so they do not need to be recalculated if the same selection is made.  It is clear that the caching features in QlikView significantly improve the end user response rate over time .
  

Posted by metrics2 at 12:45 PM | Permalink

A recent report by AMR Research found that performance management (PM) spending will increase to nearly $23B in 2006.  Survey respondents indicate they will purchase more business intelligence (BI) and dashboards and less analytic applications. The dashboard and scorecard segment will grow to $5.22 billion in 2006—corresponding with a growth rate of 26%.

The dashboard and scorecard segment is on fire as companies strive to expand the use of PM across the business, dashboards are appearing in all manner of forms, from dedicated products to components of other applications.

BI will also grow substantially, reaching $6.35 billion with a growth rate of 10%.  This upswing is due in part to a new generation of products available from best-in-class vendors and the introduction of new and expanded products from enterprise and technology platforms.

The planning, budgeting, and forecasting (PBF) segment will experience a slight decline in 2006—$4.01 billion compared to $4.14 billion in 2005.  Still, PBF was referenced as the most strategically important PM investment for 2006.

Spending on analytics applications has dropped substantially, by 17%.  Analytics infrastructure spending decreases by 4%, a more moderate decline.

The biggest impediments companies report in deploying PM are access to enterprise-wide data and data from customers and suppliers outside of the firm.

According to the study, nearly 75% of companies are involved in some level of performance management standardization across their business. This demonstrates that buying intentions are influenced by industry and existing relationships.

Buying camps are forming around best-of-breed, enterprise, and technology platform providers.  This dynamic will lead to a more competitive market for vendors in 2006.

The report, “Trends in Performance Management Spending, 2006” also uncovers customer preferences in procuring software for PM.  80% of survey respondents prefer the traditional purchase models of seat-based pricing, site licenses, term licenses, and value-based pricing.

Depending on the PM investment area, 17% to 23% of companies would prefer a software-as-a-service or an on-demand purchase option.  Service companies prefer these models significantly more than manufacturers.

Survey Methodology:

The information contained in this release is from a detailed survey conducted in late 2005 of more than 200 IT and business leaders across all industry sectors within North America.

Posted by metrics2 at 08:54 AM | Permalink

Gartner positions the NCR Teradata Warehouse Server in the leaders quadrant in its first-ever "Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management System Servers, 2006". This report evaluates database management system servers for data warehousing.

As the business grows, the NCR server can grow from a small powerhouse to a 4.2 petabyte-size warehouse capable of the most complex and advanced workloads for global businesses. The NCR server was purpose-built for data warehousing and is tightly integrated with the Teradata database to deliver the best in class rankings.  

The full Gartner Magic Quadrant Report is here, courtsey NCR Teradata. Some excerpts...

Data warehousing has rapidly become mission-critical in recent years with the growing strategic importance and pervasiveness of business intelligence. Further than being mission-critical, the DW DBMS server is rapidly and justifying being positioned as a high-availability platform for continuous 24x7 operations. The DW DBMS server workload links to the client/server publishing enterprise architecture (EA) pattern. The DW DBMS server is connected to the other infrastructure platforms over a LAN, provisioning a DBMS repository for the application workloads and tools. Its function is predominantly to satisfy reports and queries specifically structured on a DW/DBMS repository. Scale-out clustering is a requirement, as is coping with massively parallel complex queries. This requirement blurs the boundaries between DBMS hardware/software, interconnects and storage.

It is important to stress that this Magic Quadrant assesses the mix of server platform (hardware/operating system, software stack) for a given workload and market, and it does not compare individual components separately from the platform (for example, not for comparing DB2 vs. Oracle alone; see the addendum).

Posted by metrics2 at 10:09 PM | Permalink

DataJungle Software, a provider of customizable business intelligence (BI) front-end dashboard software for both the Microsoft SQL Server and Cognos BI platforms, has reported that its proprietary Matrix dashboard software has been selected by InSinkErator to deploy performance metrics dashbaord on top of an existing Cognos business intelligence infrastructure.

DataJungle Matrix 4 is a zero footprint Web front-end to the Microsoft business intelligence (BI) platform. Matrix brings together, in one integrated product, all the key BI capabilities required by the broadest range of end users in an organization - including: dashboards, analysis, Web reports, annotation, collaboration, scorecards, and wireless alerts. Matrix integrates with the key Microsoft business intelligence technologies - including: Analysis Services (OLAP, ROLAP, and HOLAP), Reporting Services, SQL Server, and SharePoint. Views based on Cognos PowerPlay cubes can also be included in Matrix dashboards.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

• Matrix provides an out-of-the-box dashboard framework that enables users to get up and running immediately, without the need for any special dashboard authoring or programming expertise.  
• Matrix allows users to explore multidimensional data in either graphical or tabular view from any perspective by filtering, drilling down, swapping, and slicing and dicing.  
• With Matrix, users can build highly complex reports with multiple levels of nesting by simply dragging and dropping from the dimension line.  
• Matrix provides powerful annotation capabilities that allow users to attach comments at the view, column, row, or even at the individual cell level.  
• The Matrix KPI Overview presents a summary window of the status of all key performance indicators defined in all tabs of the user's Matrix dashboard.  
• Matrix Mobile allows users to view the status of the metrics defined in their Matrix dashboard at any time and anywhere using a wireless devices such as a RIM BlackBerry or any WAP-2.0 enabled cell phone.

Posted by metrics2 at 07:15 AM | Permalink

TDWI 2006 poster:

Data profiling, data integration, and data quality are three key data management practices that go together. After all, they address related issues in data assessment, acquisition, and improvement. For example, data integration projects ferret out quality issues. Likewise, data quality projects depend on integration technologies to access and enhance corporate data. Data profiling—though sometimes neglected—is required as a planning task when designing data quality and data integration projects, as well as a recurring task that tracks data improvement over time. And the three practices are inherently related through a common goal, namely: to add value to information continuously.

The symbiotic cycle illustrated in this TDWI poster reveals some of the relationships among data profiling, integration, and quality. It also shows how associated tasks recur over time—in a more or less consistent order—although some repetitions of the cycle may skip some steps. Every organization’s solution will differ, but this model can be a starting point for data management professionals hoping to integrate the three practices of data profiling, integration, and quality.

Posted by metrics2 at 12:17 PM | Permalink

TechAxes, an India based Business Intelligence and Analytics software vendor focused on BI product space secured early stage funding from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF). The funding will be in the form of equity as well as optionally convertible debentures (OCD’s).

TechAxes offers business intelligence and analytics software, providing companies with one complete solution for their many analytical needs. TechAxes web on demand Dashboards, Query, Reporting and Analysis in a unified architecture allows end users to access and view their organization’s data from anywhere on the globe and analyze meaningful information with ease.

As an enhancement to traditional BI Framework, TechAxes offers a unique Integrated BPM solution (IBS) framework by introducing a finance centric model linked to all functional modules. TechAxes IBS framework helps integrate all processes with strategy and builds powerful foundation for enterprise wide performance management. TechAxes BPM verticals include Banking, Financial Services, IT Enables Services, Retail and focus will be placed on high growth areas like Telecom in the near future. 

According to the recent Frost and Sullivan study of the BI Application Software Market 2005 and beyond, the Indian BI market is pegged at $ 47.4 million with a revenue potential of $ 68.8 million by 2007. The report states that the Indian BI market is coming out of its immaturity stage, and the next three years’ forecast predicts that the market would be in high growth trajectory. Also, as per a recent survey by Gartner, Corporate Performance Management (CPM), used interchangeably with the term Business Performance Management (BPM), will be the area of BI that gets the most attention from companies.

Posted by metrics2 at 02:56 PM | Permalink

Syndera, a provider of operational intelligence solutions to Wall Street banks, announced the general availability of Syndera Operational Intelligence Suite, version 2.4 in June.

Some of the largest capital markets companies, in Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange and Equities, are using the Syndera Operational Intelligence Suite to monitor trade metrics and events as they occur in real-time to gain insight into their trading business in various markets. Syndera provides its clients with the operational intelligence tools necessary to monitor, analyze, and act in a proactive way to trade more profitably, and increase levels of customer service. Syndera enables trading desks to see specific orders as they occur, understand if the process is performing quickly enough to win business, and execute in a manner to mitigate threats and assure profitable trades.

The Syndera Operational Intelligence Suite addresses the need for immediate action on business events. With Syndera, decision makers can easily monitor and analyze key performance indicators, analyze and identify the root cause of problems, discover opportunities and take action. With this complete end-to-end visibility and control, employees are empowered to make timely, intelligent decisions that lead to greater profitability and increased customer satisfaction.

Syndera brings together all the technical components needed for a complete solution that delivers relevant and actionable real-time intelligence.  The Syndera Operational Intelligence Suite empowers Lines of Business, Operations and IT to take the right action at the right time for a more responsive, competitive business.

Posted by metrics2 at 02:42 PM | Permalink