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Models Take the Danger Out of Prediction
Predictive modeling isn't a crystal ball, and despite the efforts of Business Objects, Hyperion, Microstrategy and SAS to get predictive modeling into mainstream BI tools, there are many other reasons for its lack of success... Predictive modeling is different from using predictive models... Automating decisions with predictive models is a good idea, especially when those decisions are numerous and each one has a farily low risk of error.
JasperSoft Offers Business Intelligence On MySQL Database
JasperSoft launches a suite of reporting tools for the open-source database.
Web Analytics Vendor Adds Data Visualization
On-demand Web analytics service provider Omniture has launched Discover 2.0, a visual data exploration tool designed to uncover business opportunities, new customer acquisition strategies and ways to drive more revenue from online marketing campaigns. Complementing Omniture's SiteCatalyst Web analytics service, Discover 2.0 is said to support unlimited segmentation of online customers and site visitors.
Microsoft Wants to Take BPM Mainstream
To bring business process management technology to midsized and smaller enterprises, Microsoft has partnered with vendors specializing in modeling, business rules and human workflow.
Not Quite Live from Gartner BPM - Day One
I'm sharing impressions from here at Gartner's Business Process Management Summit in San Diego. Gartner likes to sell futures on technology. Simon Hayward presented a chart on BPM value realization over time, with three curves. Today the "productivity" curve is highest. In 2012 the "visibility" curve overtakes it. In 2017... I'll be dead by then. Does this kind of chart really advance the ball?
Vista, Infrastructure and BPM Top IT Concerns
What are the three most important priorities for IT organizations in 2007? GCR (formerly Gartner Custom Research) put this question to more than 1,000 IT professionals and determined that Windows Vista, core infrastructure and business process management are among the top concerns, eclipsing interest in security and hardware upgrades.
Altosoft Unveils Business Optimization Suite
Altosoft's upcoming operational business intelligence product uses data drawn from business processes.
Field Report: Nuclear Fuel Supplier Tightens Database Security
Keeping tabs on enriched uranium? Challenging. Keeping track of database integrity for SOX? Piece of cake.
How a Smarter Database Can Protect Your Data
Databases and networks can't tell if hackers and insiders are pilfering data. Appliance and software-based solutions offer intelligence that helps spot suspicious activity.
How Rich Internet Apps Will Improve BI, ERP
Do you think rich Internet apps (RIA) are just a concern for consumer Web sites? Think again. RIAs will soon make their mark on the enterprise, making complex software such as ERP and BI systems more accessible to ordinary business users. SAP, for one, has licensed Adobe Flex for its analytics platform and for the NetWeaver Visual Composer development tool.
Hummingbird Users Shown Easy Path To Open Text ECM
Open Text plans to make it easy for Hummingbird users to add Livelink capabilities to their content management systems.
Predictive Analytics: The Next Killer App?
At this week's TDWI Executive Summit, CIOs and IT leaders cast their votes on what BI innovation would have the biggest business impact in the next few years. The most highly ranked item: predictive analytics.
Given the perceived value of predictive analytics, why does it seem to have had such lack luster success to date? I suspect the answer is part cultural and part technological.
JRules 6.5 Delivers 'Push-Button' Decision Services
Reusability is a key to successful services-oriented architecture deployments. ILog says the 6.5 upgrade of its JRules business rules management system automates the development of "decision services" -- business rules composed and deployed as Web services -- and then helps business users and experts alike easily find, understand, modify and reuse those services.
IBM Digests FileNet
Last week IBM clarified its ECM intentions via a series of analyst briefings. In short the recently acquired FileNet P8 product will become Big Blue's main ECM offering, although legacy IBM products will remain supported for the foreseeable future... The ECM space will surely see more acquisitions, but the market has already bifurcated into business solutions providers and ECM platform players.
Q&A: Ted Farrell on Oracle's Path to Rich Internet Apps
As chief architect for tools and middleware at Oracle, Ted Farrell is responsible for the technical and strategic direction of Oracle's frameworks and development tools and for aligning those products with the vendor's Fusion middleware technologies. With some 30,000 Oracle, PeopleSoft and Siebel customers looking to those products, the direction Oracle sets will have a major impact on enterprise adoption of rich Internet apps.
Is SAP Ready for BI?
The market for BI has never been more vibrant, or the interest by midsized to large organizations in adopting BI greater. Yet in the face of this opportunity, I continue to hear reports of unrest on the part of companies using SAP for BI - reports about its lack of enterprise capabilities and the usability of the technology. SAP has declared it understands the importance of BI, but it has yet to offer cutting-edge products.
InQuira Upgrades Web Support Software
InQuira 8 offers Web support and services in a portal-like application.
Thoughts on Jim Gray, Database Pioneer
After a period of upheaval, I'm ready to resume contributing to the IE blog. My thoughts, however, are clouded by news of the apparent disappearance of Jim Gray, founder and head of Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center. Gray contributed more than anyone to the advance of database and transaction processing technology, and it's just stunning that he appears to have left us.
Debriefing: Adobe's Jeff Whatcott Explores the Rich Internet Apps Trend
Macromedia is credited with coining the term "Rich Internet Applications," so who better to comment on the future of enterprise apps than Macromedia veteran Jeff Whatcott. Now senior director, product marketing in the Enterprise & Developer Solutions Business Unit at Adobe Systems (which acquired Macromedia in 2005), Whatcott talks about Flex, Ajax and connections with services-oriented architecture.
Lombardi Blueprint Eases the Path to BPM
While I've been shouting from the rooftops that process modeling (in BPMN, ARIS, or whatever) is not that hard, Lombardi Software has been hearing from its customers that it's not that easy, either. Lombardi's on-demand Blueprint offering tries to do two basic things:
1) Link processes to business problems and goals and 2) Simplify collaborative building of process models
No Turning Back from Rich Internet Apps
Offering more than just dazzling interfaces, rich Internet apps for the enterprise will personalize interaction, empower mobile users and improve client and back-end flexibility. Here's what to look for -- and what to look out for -- when choosing RIA development approaches.
Can Open Source Apps Find Strength in Numbers?
Observations I drew from this week's LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit are that (1) location does matter, in both physical and market space and (2) some people have a strange notion of what constititues an IT solution. The interesting news at the summit was the annoucement of a new Open Solutions Alliance. But I'll get to that after first explaining my point on strange notions.
CIA Tech Incubator In-Q-Tel Invests in StreamBase
The U.S. intelligence community needs real-time surveillance and alerting capabilities, so this VC angel is investing in high-volume event processing and analysis technology.
Analysis: IBM Flexes its Content Management Muscles
Following up on last year's acquisition of FileNet, IBM outlines its federation strategy, introduces new products and underscores its clout with customers.
SAS BI: Solid or Stolid?
I agree with Gartner's assessment that "SAS offers the most comprehensive BI platform in the industry" with unmatched advanced analytics. My experience with the company's products over the years has rewarded my confidence. Yet Gartner also reports that SAS BI software is perceived as lacking usability. I agree with that assessment, too, and I've welcomed SAS efforts to counter it.
webMethods BAM Tool Taps SAP Processes
It's notoriously hard to get real-time process data out of the black box of SAP, yet such measures are crucial to improving any process dependent upon the ERP system. webMethods Optimize for SAP, a business activity monitoring (BAM) module introduced this week, is designed to provide instant access to in-process metrics and decision criteria locked in SAP.
Lombardi, Appian Take BPM On Demand
Business process management suite vendors are embracing the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model with not one but two announcements today around on-demand BPM. Lombardi, for one, introduced Blueprint, a SaaS tool intended to bring process modeling to the masses. Then Appian announced an ambitious plan to deliver its entire BPM suite on demand.
The 'Googlization' of BI... 7 Feet of Snow Coming!
One thing is clear: When you have four Intelligent Enterprise bloggers blogging on a similar topic, it's important! My fear though, in looking at Web site logs, is that we're not yet grabbing your attention on just how important this topic is. "Structured and unstructured content" is too conceptual to get you excited. Will the "Googlizing of BI" grab your attention?
Adaptive Releases Upgrade Of Budgeting, Reporting Tools
Adaptive Planning ships an upgrade of its namesake software for midsize companies.
Put to the Test: Lombardi Takes BPM Mainstream
With Outlook integration and an on-demand modeling tool, Lombardi exposes business process management to ordinary business users. It's what analysts can do with process data that sets the technology apart.
Defining Text Analytics
I've been writing and speaking on text analytics for years. This work led to a recent call from Philip Russom, an analyst at The Data Warehousing Institute, who invited me to contribute my take on text analytics, in six sentences or fewer, for a forthcoming report on the subject. I failed. I took eight sentences, but I thought I'd share the lot with you.
Analyst's View: Hyperion Unveils Strategic Vision for Management Systems
With companies seeking a common technology foundation for financial and operational decisions, Hyperion has set its sights on delivering a complete management system.
Blogosphere Responds on Google Appliance Upgrade
Google's recent announcement that it upgraded the "Mini" version of its Search Appliance ("GSA") inspires me to share some useful links that have been accumulating... Google continues to work to get inside the enterprise. Buyers need to carefully evaluate what "enterprise" search really means...
Kimball University: Pick the Right Approach to MDM
It's time to migrate master data management upstream to an integration hub or, ideally, an enterprise MDM system. And if you have yet to do anything about data consistency, take these four steps toward integration and stewardship.
OLAP Survey Says... ? Insight on 13 BI Products
Microstrategy is circulating The OLAP Survey 6, a customer-satisfaction-oriented report conducted annually by Nigel Pendse and Survey.com. The survey is billed (by the publishers) as "the most comprehensive independent survey of the on-line analytical processing and business intelligence market."
Ketera Offers Spend-Analysis Upgrade
Ketera upgrades the spend-analysis module within the company's hosted business-to-business platform for buyers and suppliers.
Don't Let the 'Crystal Decisions' Name Fool You
At first blush, Business Objects' midmarket announcement seemed to me more of the same strategy they've been talking about for the last few years: to pursue both the enterprise BI segment as well as the SMB segment. The difference is in the details, though, and this latest announcement shows a much higher degree of activity and focus.
Analysis: Inside Business Objects' Midmarket Strategy and Products
Aimed at a $2.1 billion market, Business Objects' new Crystal Decisions product family will butt heads with Microsoft's BI offerings.
Drill Down on Super Bowl Team Stats
Use BI to check out these reports on the receiving, defense, rushing and passing stats of this year's Super Bowl contenders. Information Builders used its WebFocus Active Reports technology to publish a report that lets you you dynamically re-sort, filter and chart the stats on the Bears and Colts. Did your favorite players earn their mammoth salaries?
Put to the Test: IBM WebSphere Portal 6.0
This portal's best play is enterprise integration, but it's also suitable for intranets and workgroup collaboration. Implementation can be complex and confusing, but a new Portal Express offering is aimed at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees aims to speed and simplify deployment.
What to Look for in a BPMN Tool
SOA analyst Beth Gold-Bernstein of ebizQ posts about her quest for a BPMN tool to support her effort to "take a pragmatic, business-driven approach to incremental SOA design and implementation. We plan to use standard modeling techniques and tools where ever feasible... It's time for business and IT to start speaking the same language, so we should use BPMN right from the start.
The Good, Better, Best Among BI/Search Combos
Not all combinations of search and BI technology are created equal, but most do have one thing in common -- they're not ready yet. We've been pining for an interview with an end user with first-hand experience with the combination, but we couldn't find any... Most of the Google/BI integrations announced last year will deliver what IDC search expert Sue Feldman calls "Beginner BI."
Call Me a Laggard, But I'll Miss Print
It might seem odd that a technology analyst and evaluator like myself does not whole-heartedly embrace all the latest technical innovations. As an example, let's take the recent decision by CMP to cease the print version of Intelligent Enterprise. In many respects, I like the online experience of Intelligent Enterprise... But here is the catch: Online media is in its infancy.
SAP To Offer Sales And Operations Planning App
SAP AG plans to launch in March a quickly deployable application that can gather and analyze sales and operations planning data, and deliver it to multiple departments within an organization.
Business Intelligence 2.0: Simpler, More Accessible, Inevitable
Say goodbye to complicated interfaces, disconnected analytics and shelfware. An emerging era for BI will bring simplicity, broad access and better ties between analysis and action.
Sage, RIM Say Mobile CRM Is Ready for Prime Time
With connectivity improving and mobile device data storage capacities increasing, more companies are supporting sales, service and BI applications in the field.
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The State of Cloud Computing - Fall 2020
Download this report to compare how cloud usage and spending patterns have changed in 2020, and how respondents think they'll evolve over the next two years.
2021 Top Enterprise IT TrendsWe've identified the key trends that are poised to impact the IT landscape in 2021. Find out why they're important and how they will affect you.
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