HP is rolling out a new version of HP Neoview today. The HP Neoview Advantage has been upgraded on both the software and hardware fronts. The hardware change is to the HP Integrity BladeSystem giving the solution a more modular design and allowing for a smaller footprint especially on larger configurations. HP has added more power to address real-time demands coming from their customer base by using the Neoview Transporter product to supply the appliance with a streaming real-time information feed. Improvements in I/O have provided for faster scans and higher performance on complex queries.

The best part of the offering is that the system is designed to allow for mixed work loads and can handle both transactional and analytical demands at the same time. Its a true appliance solution as its a pre-configured hardware and software bundled solution.

I'm glad to see an announcement from HP on Neoview the industry is hearing a lot from the competition in this space Oracle, Teradata, Netezza and IBM have all had large user conferences in the past 6 weeks unveiling new strategies around appliance style solutions. The competition is getting fast and furious in the 4th quarter of 2009.

The SaaS space continues to roll forward at lightening speed and Birst is moving faster than most. With only a year on the market they are launching Version 4.0 and adding features to their system that will make the enterprise IT guys stand up and take notice.

SaaS BI is a great way for many companies to address analytic needs but since the beginning security, data integration, governance and control have made many tentative to embrace the technology. Birst's latest upgrade addresses all of these hurdles. The parts I liked most are Birst Live Access it allows you to access your own data from behind the firewall and include it in your SaaS based analysis. They have also built out connectors that will allow you to integrate data from other applications like SalesForce and Google Analytics and even connectivity to desktop Access DB's and Excel to bring together a federated view of your business data.Your data stays where you have it but at the same time you benefit from a SaaS hosted BI application. The other exciting feature here is if the data you own is configured in a real-time model you can leverage that performance on Birst so real-time in the cloud becomes much simpler too.

Version 4 also has added Birst Advanced ETL this upgraded feature gives you the ability to customize the ETL to meet special corporate and analytical requirements.

There are many other feature upgrades in this version including newly enhanced dashboards and administration that now includes Flash Flex providing a more rich and interactive experience with the solution. On the Dashboard front the Flex Flash provides the business user with a more discovery rich interface allowing for easier drill downs, views and even drag and drop features to make getting answers from the data easier.

SaaS continues to be a leading area of interest with our audience at the NETWORK and these types of product announcements are proof that the segment is evolving fast to meet the needs of the growing user base.

BIREADY&trade has just announced that they are making their Data Warehouse automation software free. The 'no license fee, just maintenance' offer is valid until the end of the year. BIREADY&trade helps you design a DW and develop ETL by eliminating manual work that you generally need to do to start a project. The company helps fortune 100 and SMB's so regardless of your size you may want to take a look at the offering.

For more information visit www.biready.com.

We get to attend some very interesting events through the BeyeNETWORK as a matter of fact I am typing this blog post from the 37th floor of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas where I am attending the IBM Information On Demand Event and the SAS Premier Leadership Conference both are great events.

In a couple weeks the Network is helping to sponsor a very unique event in Boulder Colorado called the Defrag. The event focuses on topics such as:

Business Intelligence Business Process Management Social Computing and Analytics Next-level Discovery

Enterprise 2.0 Next-Gen Email The Semantic Web Social Media Monitoring and Engagement

The list of topics and speakers is fantastic and I have 1 Free Conference Pass to give away. So.....if you are interested and can guarantee that you are available to attend send me an email and I will do a random drawing on Friday of this week. (This pass doesn't include airfare or hotel) The event is November 11th and 12th and the free pass is valued at $1,495

Email me and I'll see you at Defrag 2009!!!