Building Intelligent Businesses

Several vendors announced new and improved offerings for data analytics. Additionally, according to a new IBM Corp. study, implementing business analytics has risen to the top of mid-market CIOs' to-do lists.

Focal Points:

• SAP AG announced that it would introduce Crystal Server 2011 and BusinessObjects Edge 4.0, new business intelligence (BI) products aimed at small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Crystal Server 2011 was formerly Crystal Reports Server; and according to SAP, the name change more accurately reflects the offering's positioning as an entry-level BI platform and not solely a reporting tool. The product includes new features, including the Explorer tool for drilling down into data sets as well as an information design tool, SAP added. Crystal Server 2011 is limited to a single server and 100 named users, according to SAP. Meanwhile, Edge 4.0 builds upon the Crystal Server 2011 feature set, and offers integration with third-party applications such as Oracle Corp.'s E-Business Suite, mobile BI, and Web Intelligence. Additional versions of Edge add data integration tooling and data management software, SAP added. Like Crystal Server 2011, all Edge versions are limited to a single server, said SAP. For multi-server support and unlimited users, SAP said that customers would have to upgrade to Business Objects 4.0, the vendor's enterprise-level analytics product. Both Crystal Server 2011 and Edge 4.0 will be generally available in the first few weeks of July. Pricing for Edge starts at $12,000 for 10 named users or $19,000 for five concurrent access licenses, said SAP. As for Crystal Server 2011, pricing starts at $2,495 for five named users or $6,995 for five concurrent access licenses, SAP added.
• Oracle announced that its Exadata X2 machines for transactional and analytics workloads are now certified to run SAP applications. This announcement comes after recent attempts by SAP to move its customers off of Oracle's database platforms. The SAP certification applies to products that are based on NetWeaver 7.x and are certified for Oracle database 11g Release 2, according to SAP. Meanwhile, options for open source data warehousing and analytics grew, with announcements from Infobright Inc. and Ingres Corp. and Jaspersoft Corp. Infobright released version 4.0 of its analytics database, highlighting the DomainExpert technology. According to the vendor, DomainExpert offers customers the ability to crunch machine-generated data from sensors, telecom infrastructure, and other sources in "near-real time." Version 4.0 also includes Rough Query, a new feature that allows users to dig faster through especially large data sets. The release will be generally available in July, Infobright added. In related news, Ingres and Jaspersoft announced a partnership that combines Ingres' VectorWise analytics database with Jaspersoft's BI software in a joint virtual machine. According to the vendors, a 30-day trial download is currently available at no charge for the package.
• Finally, a new study from IBM found that 83 percent of mid-market CIOs cite analytics as their top priority for investments. IBM interviewed 3,000 CIOs for the study, with 622 from mid-sized companies, which IBM defines as those with between 100 and 1,000 employees. Specifically, 64 percent of respondents said that they are using data warehousing platforms and visual dashboards, and another 63 percent are using master data management (MDM). The study's findings also reflect the fact that analytics software sales remained strong in recent years. This is despite the global economic downturn, said IBM, as companies look to find insights from their data to reap savings and a competitive advantage.

Experton Group believes analytics is today's "killer application" that is supposed to provide every business an edge of its competition through identification of new opportunities, productivity improvements, upselling or other insights. Vendors are lining up to sell business and IT executives a plethora of middleware solutions and tools to assist in this effort. The business challenges will be the proper identification of content for analysis and the conversion of vast sums of data into actionable, useful information. Business and IT executives need to collaborate on the best ways to extract and leverage information in order to augment the organization's top or bottom line.