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Midmarket Business Intelligence: LucidEra review

The midmarket especially is still having a hard time with business intelligence. The appetite simply isn't there for "metadata", "data stewardship", "data quality", "XML", "ODS", "MPP" and the like. Simple reports - yes. Quick implementation - now you're talking. Stepping into this fray is venture-backed LucidEra - Hosted Business Intelligence on Demand.

While I have been bemoaning packaged approaches to BI for years, saying there are efficiencies but few shortcuts, I have to say the LucidEra approach has merit for its target customer base - the midmarket.

Highlights:

. Expert applications that answer the most commonly asked questions
. User-definable configurations, not done by vendor
. Focus on business processes
. Platform not exposed to customer

They're only in Beta and it's one application, Forecast-to-Billing, but just as in an end-user environment, once the data act is in order, applications can be spun off relatively quickly and I anticipate LucidEra will do this.

Could LucidEra be a (long-term) custom OLAP killer? Maybe. Time will tell, with the next few quarters being critical to that direction. Custom Microsoft solutions are also pretty easy to deploy and will be the choice of many in the midmarket, although Microsoft is eyeing the fortune accounts. Regardless, all signs point to improvement in the penetration of the midmarket by business intelligence.

As with anything "packaged", buyer beware. Just be ready and understand it fully. Hire a real DW/BI consultant to help you organize processes and roles and responsibilities for maintenance and iterating it.

  Posted by William McKnight on October 9, 2006 7:25 AM |

Comments

William,

A quick comment regarding the “buyer beware” advisory:

Yes, buyers should evaluate closely what they buy. At the same time, we should not forget that from the end users’ point of view, every single BI/OLAP solution is "packaged" by someone else.

Each BI application is constrained by the following:
1. The choice of data captured and aggregated into a data warehouse, mart, or equivalent data structure.
2. The choice of metadata exposed to end users.
3. The selection of reports and dashboards made available to the end user, for cases where the user does not have the option to create customized reports or dashboards.

Hence, for the end user, the choice becomes one between selecting and quickly deploying a hosted application from someone like LucidEra, or relying on an application that will be designed, built, configured, and deployed (read: “packaged”) within their organization.

Posted by: Alex Moissis | October 9, 2006 3:21 PM

We use Panorama Software's BI solution. the company offers the ability to host their solution as an SaaS. this is basically done by remote replication of our inhouse OLAP cube to their server in a secured and encripted way. then we get access to the application via the web. this is the hybrid approach for BI in SaaS vs. totally new strategies

Posted by: Mike Rosenberg | October 10, 2006 12:09 PM

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