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February 24, 2006

SAS Strong In Advanced Analytics, Data Access For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

SAS's SAS9 BI v9.1.3 provides a solid business intelligence (BI) product for analytic reporting, but has clear limitations in enterprise reporting. The product provides comprehensive data access to most RDBMSes and MDDBs, along with mainframes and legacy apps, as well as advanced analytics in data mining and predictive analytics. Other strengths include solid metadata development and security capabilities with improved usability and Microsoft Office integration capabilities. However, SAS is the only tier-one BI vendor that does not have a viable enterprise reporting solution to complement its analytic reporting capabilities, which makes SAS less attractive to companies looking to standardize on a single reporting solution. Based on our analysis, SAS is a strong performer in analytic reporting and a contender in enterprise reporting with a greater emphasis on analytic reporting.

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February 23, 2006

SAP Strong In Application Integration For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

SAP NetWeaver 2004 is an integration and application platform. The product provides comprehensive business intelligence (BI) application development tools and capabilities targeted at operational BI apps embedded within composite application processes, with an embedded data warehouse (SAP BW), analytic reporting tool (BEx), and enterprise reporting (Crystal Reports via OEM). A strong international presence and solid metadata management mechanism are balanced against basic support for usability, report development, and dashboard capabilities. Unlike most BI products, SAP NetWeaver 2004 offers a broad range of BI and non-BI application server capabilities that often creates confusion with buyers about what to license and how to implement NetWeaver as a BI solution. Overall, SAP is a strong performer in both enterprise and analytic reporting with a greater emphasis on enterprise reporting.

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Oracle Strong In Java Development, Security For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

Oracle Business Intelligence 10.1.2 provides a Java application-centric business intelligence (BI) reporting and analysis amalgam of products bundled within the Oracle 10g database and Oracle 10g application server for support of analytic and enterprise reporting. The product provides comprehensive security and administration along with application scalability and basic Microsoft Office integration, but lacks robust report layout and development functionality and ease of use. This product is but one of a few — others include Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SAP NetWeaver 2004 — that provides BI functionality bundled within a database or application server platform. Based on our analysis, Oracle is a strong performer in both analytic and enterprise reporting with a greater emphasis on analytic reporting.

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February 22, 2006

Microsoft Low Cost To Scale For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

Microsoft's business intelligence (BI) technology, including SQL Server 2005 with Integration Services for data integration, Reporting Services for production reporting, and Analysis Services for analytic functionality, provides a solid, albeit incomplete, solution for analytic and enterprise reporting. The offering provides good usability and application development capabilities, with average analytic functionality — highlighted by the OLAP functionality in Analysis Services. Microsoft is one of a growing number of vendors — including Actuate, Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion, and MicroStrategy — that offer both analytic and enterprise reporting capabilities on an integrated platform; however, the newness and immaturity of Reporting Services with the brand new report authoring capabilities make this a work in progress. As a result, Microsoft is a strong performer in both enterprise and analytic reporting with a greater emphasis on analytic reporting.

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Information Builders Strong In Data Access, Scalability For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

Information Builders WebFOCUS 7 provides a strong application development platform for developing and deploying operational business intelligence (BI) apps. The product provides comprehensive data access, excellent application scalability, and security and administration, but lacks usability and robust report layout and design capabilities. WebFOCUS is best suited for production reporting applications and operational BI, but is not well suited for advanced analytics or OLAP applications. Overall, Information Builders is a strong performer in both enterprise and analytic reporting with a greater emphasis on enterprise reporting.

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MicroStrategy Strong In OLAP Functionality For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

The MicroStrategy 8 platform provides a solid business intelligence (BI) product for analytic and enterprise reporting. The offering provides strong OLAP capabilities with extended access to SAP BW cubes, along with strong administration and security capabilities and solid Microsoft Office integration capabilities. MicroStrategy includes an enterprise reporting component (Report Services) within the core product; however; limitations in data access lower the overall appeal of the production reporting mechanism. Overall, MicroStrategy is a strong performer in both enterprise and analytic reporting with a greater emphasis on analytic reporting.

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February 21, 2006

Hyperion Strong In OLAP, Integrated Security For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

Hyperion System 9 BI+ is an integrated platform built on a framework that supports many Hyperion Solutions applications and tools, including performance management, financial budgeting/planning/consolidations, and business intelligence (BI). The product provides strong analytic functionality via its Essbase 9 OLAP engine along with unification of the interface, with general metadata functionality, application scalability, report layout, and Microsoft Office integration. Hyperion is one of a growing number of vendors — including Actuate, Business Objects, Cognos, Microsoft, and MicroStrategy — that offer both analytic and enterprise reporting capabilities on an integrated platform. With this combination of capabilities, Hyperion is a strong performer in both enterprise and analytic reporting with a greater emphasis on analytic reporting.

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Cognos A Leader In BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) offers a single, strong BI reporting and analysis product for support of analytic and enterprise reporting. The product is strong in all three areas — analytic functionality, application development, and usability with comprehensive support for unification, internationalization, and open APIs, and strong support for OLAP, query, metadata, dashboards, and scorecards. Cognos is one of a growing number of vendors — including Actuate, Business Objects, Hyperion, Microsoft, and MicroStrategy — that offer both analytic and enterprise reporting capabilities. However, Cognos 8 BI is a completely new, Web-based product that incorporates much of the functionality from Cognos legacy BI products such as PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, Impromptu, ReportNet, and others. Based on our evaluation, Cognos is a leader in both analytic and enterprise reporting.

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February 20, 2006

Business Objects Leads In BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

BusinessObjects XI Release 2 provides a strong, integrated reporting and analysis platform that includes a best-of-breed solution for both analytic reporting in WebIntelligence XI and enterprise reporting in Crystal Reports XI. The product offers comprehensive query capabilities, metadata functionality, and report development features along with strong usability, internationalization, and result dissemination. Business Objects is one of a growing number of vendors — also including Actuate, Cognos, Hyperion, Microsoft, and MicroStrategy — that offer both analytic and enterprise reporting capabilities on an integrated platform; however, BusinessObjects XI Release 2 contains proven and tested reporting and analysis products. Based on this combination of features, BusinessObjects is a leader in both analytic and enterprise reporting.

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Actuate Strong In Layout, Scalability For BI Reporting And Analysis Platforms

Actuate iServer v8 provides a platform for developing and deploying reporting applications in support of analytic and enterprise reporting. The product offers comprehensive application development capabilities with strength in report development and dissemination, layout and formatting, security and administration, internationalization, and Web services. Product weaknesses include limited analytic functionality with basic OLAP and little or no predictive analytics or business process capabilities. Actuate's e.Spreadsheet product for integrating business intelligence (BI) reporting with Microsoft Excel provides a clear differentiator. Overall, Actuate is a strong performer in both enterprise and analytic reporting with a greater emphasis on enterprise reporting.

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February 10, 2006

Quality Monitoring Provides Companies With Valuable Business Intelligence

Companies need more customer insight to make timely business decisions. Although contact centers are a major hub for customer interactions, companies do not analyze customer phone conversations, emails, and chats for the customer's experience or attitude. Because voice recordings consist of unstructured conversations that have been historically difficult to analyze and report, organizations lose valuable customer information. Contact centers typically use quality monitoring applications for compliance purposes and to monitor agent performance, but these applications can also mine valuable business intelligence from captured interactions. Leading quality monitoring vendors now offer analytical tools that interpret structured and unstructured data to build a visual overview of contact attributes from customer conversations. By understanding the context and root cause of each customer interaction, companies can do more to reach goals on increasing revenues and reducing customer churn.

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February 8, 2006

Business Objects and Firstlogic -- A Clash of Cultures?

Business Objects' planned acquisition of First Logic makes technology sense, but does it make customer sense?

Business Intelligence mainstay Business Objects announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Firstlogic, a long-time provider of data quality solutions.

In recent years, Business Objects has inched its way from the analytics side to the data management side of the data warehouse. Several years ago it acquired data integration technology from Acta, but had chosen to continue partnering its way to data quality. On its own part, Firstlogic has been looking for a home for quite a while. Recently however, Firstlogic backed out of an ill-advised planned acquisition by Pitney Bowes (that had recently acquired Group1, another data quality solution provider).

Although Firstlogic’s technology may fit with Business Objects’ portfolio, how will its customers and employees? Culturally, they couldn’t be further apart from a corporate perspective, with Business Objects based in France and Firstlogic based in the intimate upstate Wisconsin Mississippi river town of LaCrosse. (At least it sounds French.)

Users too seem to find a disparity of experience between the two firms. Evalubase’s ongoing study of the enterprise technology market place shows that Firstlogic could offer Business Objects a boost to its Vendor Respect Index™ (VRI). The VRI is a composite indicator of user satisfaction with vendors as an organization, irrespective of their technology. Business Objects currently maintains a VRI of 70 (out of 100), while Firstlogic has a much stronger VRI of 77.

Although Business Objects’ VRI is above average for business intelligence vendors, Firstlogic leads Business Objects in most vendor respect categories, including: responsiveness, ingenuity, support, sales, licensing practices, and service and training. This means that Firstlogic will need to take measures to maintain the intimacy and respect of their customers, while Business Objects might learn a thing or two from Firstlogic about how to do so.

About Evalubase Research

Evalubase is a market information services firm providing market research, enterprise technology ratings, dynamic peer scorecards, and consulting. The firm's rating measurements are based exclusively on responses from actual technology users. Evalubase helps IT vendors and IT departments optimize decision-making by Telling IT like it is®. Now in its third year, Evalubase’s continuous study of enterprise technology trends offers subscribers access to dozens of live ratings, ROI data, ranked buying criteria, and other key metrics supplied by actual users and implementers. This objective information about vendors, their competitors and their markets can be used to optimize product planning and marketing strategies. Participating business and IT professionals and departments are rewarded with instant, dynamic online scorecards quantitatively comparing their IT portfolio versus peer groups. (www.evalubase.com/getstarted.aspx) Evalubase can be reached via its website at www.evalubase.com.

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BSM Is Coming Of Age: Time To Define What It Is

As more and more IT organizations improve their service delivery, they are turning their focus to presenting their business value more positively. These organizations are beginning to develop true business service management (BSM) systems by doing two things: understanding the metrics their business users employ to decide if IT is providing value, and linking these metrics and associated business services to IT infrastructure components. Vendors have been using — and abusing — the term BSM for a couple of years now, so clients are understandably confused about the inconsistent messages they receive from vendors. To cut through the confusion, Forrester now proposes a definition of BSM based on observations of many of our clients' BSM projects.

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February 6, 2006

The Interaction Platform: Widespread In 2006

The interaction platform began as an architecture pattern enabled by service-oriented architecture (SOA), a common way to factor an application front end from the back-end services it uses, supported by frameworks and infrastructure. During 2005 a number of events moved packaged applications and services, application infrastructure, frameworks, and tools into closer alignment with this pattern. However, only a few major vendors are explicitly positioning products as interaction platforms, with the rest embedding those capabilities in broader application platform suites. Despite this low-key market status, organizations with requirements for rich clients, multichannel business processes, composite applications, collaboration, and other capabilities of interaction platforms should align architecture and purchasing plans with this trend to ensure the best fit of platform and tool strategy to meet these needs.

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