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Welcome to my BeyeNETWORK blog! Please join me often to share your thoughts and observations on new analytic platforms, BI and data management. I maintain a vendor-focused practice that uses primary research, briefings, case studies, events and other activities that stimulate ideas as a source for commentary on strategy and execution in the marketplace. I believe the emergence of a new class of analytic platforms, and emerging data management and advanced tools herald a next step in the maturity of information technology, and I'm excited to be present for its emergence. I hope my blog entries will stimulate ideas that will serve both the vendors creating these new solutions and the companies that will improve their business prospects as a result of applying them. Please share your thoughts and input on the topics.

 

 

Tibco Silver Spotfire - Social BI? Why Not?

Tibco, fresh from a Q2 with license revenue up 23% over last year's, continuing a two year run of beating consensus earnings estimates, has stepped up and out ahead to pursue the long-coveted mid-market customers who don't use BI but find that spreadsheets don't do enough.  Tibco believes, like Microsoft, that many are social technology users: they have blogs and use other channels available to them, and they will build and share reports given the chance. So, says Tibco, here it is: building on the Silver cloud platform it's had in beta for about a year, Tibco is introducing Silver Spotfire, with an offer tuned to the cloud user - a no-cost, no-obligation, no-risk 1-year trial of a Spotfire play in the cloud requiring no IT involvement. "All you need is a browser," is the pitch, and this is not from a new company you don't know, but an established  player with a sizable roster of enterprise BI customers.
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Posted July 14, 2010 8:16 AM
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2 Comments

Elad Israeli | July 18, 2010 3:24 PM | Reply

Interesting.

Most traditional BI vendors who suddenly decide to introduce cloud offerings usually do it to prevent being left out by the cloud-BI hype. The same hype that spawned (or was spawned by) companies such as GoodData and Birst.

No one has yet to prove that cloud-BI is sustainable. Sap, for example, sell their cloud offering for about 25$ per user month, but they also admit that this product cost more than the income it generates.

Whether the cloud is a right match for BI or not is debatable, but Tibco is taking the extra mile and giving out a free 1 year 'trial'.

Whether it works or not, we can wait and see, but it's pretty certain it will hurt existing dedicated cloud BI providers, at least in the short run. All the power to them!

Elad
SiSense
http://elasticube.blogspot.com

Merv Adrian | July 18, 2010 4:11 PM | Reply

Thanks for the comment, Elad. There's no question that there has been a surge of early efforts to find a winning model of BI in the cloud. But in my view, it's not about whether it will be sustainable, it's about how is will work. Companies are in the cloud, their business processes are in the cloud, their collaborative environmentsa re moving there, and some of their BI will be there too.

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