Those leveraging the expansive power of Microsoft's business intelligence solutions may have noticed that while other major business intelligence providers like Oracle, SAP, and IBM have launched applications to take their services into the mobile sphere, Microsoft has yet to make an official release. Oracle has released Business Intelligence Mobile for iOS devices, SAP launched Business Objects Mobile last year, and IBM has Cognos Mobile for BlackBerry and iOS devices. If you're waiting on an official Microsoft release, there's both good news and bad news.
The bad news is that it doesn't appear Microsoft is planning on releasing a cross-platform mobile BI application anytime soon. The good news, though, is that this doesn't mean you can't experience dynamic, real-time Microsoft business intelligence solutions from your mobile device.
Microsoft has an expansive network of official partners, and the technology juggernaut is currently content to allow their multitude of partners to develop these in-demand applications. Applications like RoamBI, PushBI, and the upcoming Fetch! are just a few of the applications that will feature cross-platform integration, and there are plenty more applications available for Windows Phone 7 devices.
RoamBI's free version integrates with Microsoft Excel, CSV, and HTML to allow users to create custom mobile dashboards, but also offers a premium version. RoamBI Pro is spendy, with a $99 yearly license fee, but for small groups within a business setting, the average monthly investment of $8.25 is a small spend for integration with Excel, CSV, HTML, Google Docs, and Salesforce. RoamBI also has an enterprise version (RoamBI ES3) that integrates with all of the previously-mentioned technologies, plus SAP Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects, IBM Cognos, Microsoft Reporting Services, and Liferay Portal, though pricing on that is on a per-buyer basis and requires you to contact the creators. It's currently supported on iOS devices as well as BlackBerry devices, but remains quiet on whether or not they will be launching an Android version. It's just speculation here, but given the high demands and persistent requests on their forums, it's difficult to imagine such a successful application developer completely ignoring this market share by not developing something for the Android OS.
PushBI is another example of a cross-platform application that integrates with most major BI platforms (Microsoft, SAP, Oracle), and unlike RoamBI it currently features an Android version. PushBI has led to some mixed reviews from the limited amount of users who have taken the time to write them up, but keep in mind that this is a free application, so it's not necessarily fair to line it up against a premium paid product like RoamBI.
The upcoming release of Fetch! is another application to watch for. It's currently in the works, and if you contact the makers you can receive a free trial. It promises compatibility with Windows Phone, Android, and iOS devices, and boasts integration with SharePoint, PerformancePoint, SQL Azure, SQL Server, Salesforce, Oracle, and more.
The lack of an official Microsoft mobile business intelligence release is an unfortunate reality for the time being, but Microsoft users shouldn't panic or consider switching away from its top-notch BI services. Take a look at some of Microsoft's partners and the mobile efforts they're pursuing. There are plenty of powerful solutions out there that can fit your needs without requiring a drastic switch.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Business Intelligence Software Solutions For Industries
Business Intelligence Software is of utmost importance to any business that wants to prosper and reach its desired milestones - it helps in easy gathering of information from various sources namely databases, spreadsheets and any other programs that a business uses. BI software is seeing the advent of many new entries like MicroStrategy and Tableau - both of them have a decent following and are specialized in innovating new features and adjusting to the changing marketplace. BI software is like a magic wand in the hands of managers as it enables them to get a good relationship between data for making critical decisions - cost reduction, opportunities, resource deployment and managing.
Below is a list of some of the leading BI solution industries
The list contains both large and medium size BI solution industries in random order as a clear-cut ranking as such cannot be created - All have their own golden eggs i.e. all are specialists in different ways.
IBM Cognos 8 BI
IBM's Cognos 8 BI offers an exclusive range of BI solutions - analysis, reporting, dash boarding, scorecards - all on service oriented architecture (SOA). Additionally Report Studio, Analysis Studio, Query Studio, Metric Designer, Metric Studio, Event Studio, Framework Manager and also Powerplay Studio are included. In 2009 IBM had acquired SPSS for a base price of $1.2 billion adding an analytic element into its already exquisite range of services. IBM declared that business analytics is one of its most critical fields in its overall strategy. It has also spent heavily more than $12 billion - most of this in business analytics Resource and Development.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus
Oracle's BI Enterprise Edition Plus is a range of business intelligence software solutions that use Oracle BI Server as a platform thus providing integration amongst its various tools. These BI integration tools provides service oriented architecture, analytic and calculation infrastructure, data management services, data access services, semantic business model, security models and also user preferences and an administration tool.
SAP Crystal Reports
This gives users the access to graphically designed reports and also the opportunity to integrate them to any source of data - Excel, Oracle, local files, etc. The information stored here can be seen either through email, the web, MS Office or as a PDF at times even through the applications of the enterprise.
Microsoft PowerPivot
It consists of Microsoft Office 2010 package including Microsoft's Power Pivot for excel and Power Pivot for SharePoint. Here BI tools are given to the worker through Microsoft's applications.
MicroStrategy Reporting Suite
It is a free BI tool that helps you in reporting - consist of software for analysis and managing jobs. The end files are in HTML, Excel, PDF and text. Data can also be exhibited in the form of graphs and charts.
Information Builders WebFOCUS
This is completely web-based and has no plug-ins at all. According to the company it is totally into BI applications and not into various tools. More than 12,000 sites use this program.
Tableau Business Intelligence Software
This particular business intelligence software has got plenty of drag and drop features and therefore the people using it need not be professionals to get the information in any structured format.
Below is a list of some of the leading BI solution industries
The list contains both large and medium size BI solution industries in random order as a clear-cut ranking as such cannot be created - All have their own golden eggs i.e. all are specialists in different ways.
IBM Cognos 8 BI
IBM's Cognos 8 BI offers an exclusive range of BI solutions - analysis, reporting, dash boarding, scorecards - all on service oriented architecture (SOA). Additionally Report Studio, Analysis Studio, Query Studio, Metric Designer, Metric Studio, Event Studio, Framework Manager and also Powerplay Studio are included. In 2009 IBM had acquired SPSS for a base price of $1.2 billion adding an analytic element into its already exquisite range of services. IBM declared that business analytics is one of its most critical fields in its overall strategy. It has also spent heavily more than $12 billion - most of this in business analytics Resource and Development.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus
Oracle's BI Enterprise Edition Plus is a range of business intelligence software solutions that use Oracle BI Server as a platform thus providing integration amongst its various tools. These BI integration tools provides service oriented architecture, analytic and calculation infrastructure, data management services, data access services, semantic business model, security models and also user preferences and an administration tool.
SAP Crystal Reports
This gives users the access to graphically designed reports and also the opportunity to integrate them to any source of data - Excel, Oracle, local files, etc. The information stored here can be seen either through email, the web, MS Office or as a PDF at times even through the applications of the enterprise.
Microsoft PowerPivot
It consists of Microsoft Office 2010 package including Microsoft's Power Pivot for excel and Power Pivot for SharePoint. Here BI tools are given to the worker through Microsoft's applications.
MicroStrategy Reporting Suite
It is a free BI tool that helps you in reporting - consist of software for analysis and managing jobs. The end files are in HTML, Excel, PDF and text. Data can also be exhibited in the form of graphs and charts.
Information Builders WebFOCUS
This is completely web-based and has no plug-ins at all. According to the company it is totally into BI applications and not into various tools. More than 12,000 sites use this program.
Tableau Business Intelligence Software
This particular business intelligence software has got plenty of drag and drop features and therefore the people using it need not be professionals to get the information in any structured format.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Business Intelligence 2.0
So you thought the beginning and end of BI is the setting up of a cutting edge Data Warehouse? Well, think again. The BI landscape has undergone a sea change. Trying to articulate its various aspects and how it is evolving would fill several books. In this article, we will skim the surface and talk about the various ways in which BI is being perceived and handled in the current IT landscape.
If Traditional BI = Data Warehouse + Reporting Tools
Then
BI 2.0 = (Past + Present) Data/Analytics + Future Business Analytics + Reporting Tools
I have used this simple equation by way of demonstration: BI v2.0 is all about studying and analyzing Past, Present and Future trends using archived and real-time data feeds and then turning this data into knowledge for stronger decision-making.
It is real-time or it is of no real use:
When it comes to Traditional BI tools, the data retrieved from them, in today's parlance, is considered outdated. Intelligence is gleaned after the fact-after significant time has elapsed between the actual activity and the time when it is analyzed in either an individual or aggregated fashion. In this Internet Age, even the lapse of a day could render that data obsolete.
BAM and CEP are real-time tools; data is analyzed as the transactions are being executed. It is this optimally effective decision-making in the moment that makes BI 2.0 so attractive to new age businesses.
Use Case:
Let us now look at a common use case: the Shopping Cart. Shopping on the web is one of the most common online transactional activities today, and it is increasing year over year. For high traffic sites like eBay and Amazon, business cannot be made truly agile without the use of real-time analytics. Traditional BI just will not suffice.
So let us consider the following example:
• Acme Mart is a medium-sized discount store with brick and mortar stores throughout the country.
• It also sells merchandise through its high traffic website acmediscountstore.com.
• The transaction volumes both at the stores and online is quite large-to the extent of several million per day.
• It has a mature, established SOA infrastructure and its entire order management process is service-enabled.
Acme Mart also uses BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) to monitor services. Custom dashboards have been built to monitor sales of specific item categories and even items through sophisticated dashboards.
Contrast this with a similar business that uses Traditional BI mechanisms. It is obvious that it will not be able to match the level of agility of Acme Mart. By the time the sales data is analyzed, the opportunity to respond proactively has passed. Acme Mart is clearly more capable of reducing costs and increasing revenues via its real-time BAM-enabled BI solutions.
While CEP (Complex Event Processing) is similar to BAM, it is more of a services agnostic technology. It is sort of a real-time message aggregator that can process messages from various different sources including web services. One example of this can be applied to the current use case, along with order information, if related stock price information for the companies that produce those products are also needed in a separate dashboard then this feed that would normally come from the likes of a Bloomberg or Reuters can be combined with this Order data and displayed.
BI Technology Trends: The Past
We need not go into the details of how BI functions were being performed or are still being approached using DW-driven technology. If Business needed insights into key trends then they would follow this well beaten path:
- Setup a de-normalized DW or Data Mart
- ETL information from transactional data stores into DW
- Use reporting tools like Cognos to generate the required MIS reports.
Therefore, this was the tried and trusted method and was considered business as usual. Traditional BI is very batch-oriented in nature and not real-time. However, while real-time mechanisms may look very compelling in terms of their value proposition and ROI, it may not be feasible to implement these quickly as they are dependent on a services-based infrastructure.
BI Technology Trends: The Present
As the competitive landscape becomes more intense, the need for real-time business intelligence is almost De Rigueur in certain types of industries, in order to gain business agility and competitive advantage. With the advent of technologies such as BAM and CEP, it is possible to perform real-time and even future what if business analytics.
BAM and CEP fall under a new category called Event Driven Architecture (EDA). These tools permit BI in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is associated mainly with Web Services. It is a dashboard driven toolset that is comprised of various design time components and a runtime component. It is used in conjunction with other runtime components of a typical SOA implementation, such as ESBs and BPEL engines.
CEP (Complex Event Processing) is similar to BAM with the difference that CEP is not tied to web services alone and is message agnostic. You can aggregate disparate messages from myriad sources and use them as part of one CEP application.CEP is usually event driven.
The online shopping segment is also benefiting a lot from these advanced BI services paradigms. The likes of Amazon, eBay and Zappos are rejoicing at the arrival of BAM and CEP. In such high traffic sites where the hits are measured in millions per day, attaining the level of agility and edge over the competition is virtually impossible without real-time analytics. Traditional BI strategies fall woefully short and are not equipped to deal with these types of business operations.
BI Technology Trends: The Future
There are several game changing trends that are in vogue in the BI field that promise to change the face of the industry. While BAM and CEP are the pre-cursors, they are fueling other paradigms that were not possible before.
Here is an example that is taken from advertising industry pundits whose central focus is always on "The Consumer": Smart Billboards that will glean biometric information based on facial features of anyone walking by. If the consumer turns out to be a young 20-something year old male, the back end system would beam back relevant information such as ads for an iPod, cell phone, energy drink, sports car or anything that fits this particular demographic.
Just 5 years ago, this idea would have seemed outlandish, but not anymore. With real-time BI delivery mechanisms at the foundation, scenarios such as this are becoming reality. With a little ingenuity and BI 2.0, the possibilities are seemingly endless.
If Traditional BI = Data Warehouse + Reporting Tools
Then
BI 2.0 = (Past + Present) Data/Analytics + Future Business Analytics + Reporting Tools
I have used this simple equation by way of demonstration: BI v2.0 is all about studying and analyzing Past, Present and Future trends using archived and real-time data feeds and then turning this data into knowledge for stronger decision-making.
It is real-time or it is of no real use:
When it comes to Traditional BI tools, the data retrieved from them, in today's parlance, is considered outdated. Intelligence is gleaned after the fact-after significant time has elapsed between the actual activity and the time when it is analyzed in either an individual or aggregated fashion. In this Internet Age, even the lapse of a day could render that data obsolete.
BAM and CEP are real-time tools; data is analyzed as the transactions are being executed. It is this optimally effective decision-making in the moment that makes BI 2.0 so attractive to new age businesses.
Use Case:
Let us now look at a common use case: the Shopping Cart. Shopping on the web is one of the most common online transactional activities today, and it is increasing year over year. For high traffic sites like eBay and Amazon, business cannot be made truly agile without the use of real-time analytics. Traditional BI just will not suffice.
So let us consider the following example:
• Acme Mart is a medium-sized discount store with brick and mortar stores throughout the country.
• It also sells merchandise through its high traffic website acmediscountstore.com.
• The transaction volumes both at the stores and online is quite large-to the extent of several million per day.
• It has a mature, established SOA infrastructure and its entire order management process is service-enabled.
Acme Mart also uses BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) to monitor services. Custom dashboards have been built to monitor sales of specific item categories and even items through sophisticated dashboards.
Contrast this with a similar business that uses Traditional BI mechanisms. It is obvious that it will not be able to match the level of agility of Acme Mart. By the time the sales data is analyzed, the opportunity to respond proactively has passed. Acme Mart is clearly more capable of reducing costs and increasing revenues via its real-time BAM-enabled BI solutions.
While CEP (Complex Event Processing) is similar to BAM, it is more of a services agnostic technology. It is sort of a real-time message aggregator that can process messages from various different sources including web services. One example of this can be applied to the current use case, along with order information, if related stock price information for the companies that produce those products are also needed in a separate dashboard then this feed that would normally come from the likes of a Bloomberg or Reuters can be combined with this Order data and displayed.
BI Technology Trends: The Past
We need not go into the details of how BI functions were being performed or are still being approached using DW-driven technology. If Business needed insights into key trends then they would follow this well beaten path:
- Setup a de-normalized DW or Data Mart
- ETL information from transactional data stores into DW
- Use reporting tools like Cognos to generate the required MIS reports.
Therefore, this was the tried and trusted method and was considered business as usual. Traditional BI is very batch-oriented in nature and not real-time. However, while real-time mechanisms may look very compelling in terms of their value proposition and ROI, it may not be feasible to implement these quickly as they are dependent on a services-based infrastructure.
BI Technology Trends: The Present
As the competitive landscape becomes more intense, the need for real-time business intelligence is almost De Rigueur in certain types of industries, in order to gain business agility and competitive advantage. With the advent of technologies such as BAM and CEP, it is possible to perform real-time and even future what if business analytics.
BAM and CEP fall under a new category called Event Driven Architecture (EDA). These tools permit BI in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is associated mainly with Web Services. It is a dashboard driven toolset that is comprised of various design time components and a runtime component. It is used in conjunction with other runtime components of a typical SOA implementation, such as ESBs and BPEL engines.
CEP (Complex Event Processing) is similar to BAM with the difference that CEP is not tied to web services alone and is message agnostic. You can aggregate disparate messages from myriad sources and use them as part of one CEP application.CEP is usually event driven.
The online shopping segment is also benefiting a lot from these advanced BI services paradigms. The likes of Amazon, eBay and Zappos are rejoicing at the arrival of BAM and CEP. In such high traffic sites where the hits are measured in millions per day, attaining the level of agility and edge over the competition is virtually impossible without real-time analytics. Traditional BI strategies fall woefully short and are not equipped to deal with these types of business operations.
BI Technology Trends: The Future
There are several game changing trends that are in vogue in the BI field that promise to change the face of the industry. While BAM and CEP are the pre-cursors, they are fueling other paradigms that were not possible before.
Here is an example that is taken from advertising industry pundits whose central focus is always on "The Consumer": Smart Billboards that will glean biometric information based on facial features of anyone walking by. If the consumer turns out to be a young 20-something year old male, the back end system would beam back relevant information such as ads for an iPod, cell phone, energy drink, sports car or anything that fits this particular demographic.
Just 5 years ago, this idea would have seemed outlandish, but not anymore. With real-time BI delivery mechanisms at the foundation, scenarios such as this are becoming reality. With a little ingenuity and BI 2.0, the possibilities are seemingly endless.
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