Business Intelligence top priority of CIOs

A survey of 1400 CIOs worldwide released last week revealed that BI was ranked the number one technology priority of CIOs. Gartner, which conducted the survey, says that while increasing investments in BI present good opportunities for software vendors, the market will get tougher in 2007 with increased competition from the major software vendors such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.

Gartner also predicts tough times for the pure play BI vendors such as Business Objects, Hyperion and SAS Institute. According to Gartner, the BI revenue from the major software vendors will grow three times faster than revenues from the BI pure-play vendors in 2007.

Read the full story (iTWire)

BI Making Headway in Banks’ Profitability Efforts

Imagine being able to look at all the data on your customers across your organization to determine the best ways to increase the profitability and loyalty of those clients. Nothing new there — banks have been doing this in some form for years. It’s called CRM, right?

Not quite. Although customer relationship management and the technologies that have grown around it provide banks with some value around data interpretation, the future of analytics lies in business intelligence (BI).

Read the full story (TechWeb)

BI & BPM: More Important than ERP ? (Podcast)

Business performance management (BPM) has gone, in just five short years, from a silo of data in the office of finance to an enterprise-wide application that has proven to have a fundamental impact on the overall performance of an organization. As we watch its widespread adoption and the importance it quickly takes on for end users, along with the strong return on investment (ROI), BPM combined with existing BI (business intelligence) initiatives can be every bit as critical as transactional enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Read the full story (B-Eye Network)

Microsoft Shines a BPM Light on The Small Ones

Emboldened by mass adoption for its BizTalk Server 2006 middleware by Fortune 500 businesses, Microsoft said it has formed the Business Process Alliance (BPA) to make it easier for smaller businesses to employ business process management (BPM) software.

BPA is a group of 10 companies whose goal is to build BPM packages for smaller companies that haven’t yet jumped onto the bandwagon.

Read the full story (internet.com)

BI in 2007: For Some, The Year of Living Mundanely?

What’s on tap for 2007? Many rank and file BI pros say to forget MDM, BSO, or other such novel acronyms; they’re focusing on more mundane stuff.

What’s on tap for business intelligence (BI) pros in 2007? More of the same, it looks like. While CIOs and other C-level-types seem preoccupied with ambitious projects involving next-gen acronyms—business performance management (BPM), master data management (MDM), and business service optimization (BSO) , to name just a few—many rank and file DW and BI pros seem to be focusing on more mundane, but nevertheless crucial tasks, such as improving decision-support availability and service levels, rolling out new DW and BI solutions, and grappling with ever-expanding data volumes.

Read the full story (Enterprise Systems Journal)

Gartner: It’s business intelligence 2.0 time

Forget talk of Web 2.0, it’s time for BI 2.0, according to Gartner.

The analyst group has laid out its case for improving the use of business intelligence in enterprises. Speaking at the Gartner BI Summit at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on Tuesday, Gartner vice president for research, Andreas Bitterer, said the next generation of business intelligence (BI) would be defined by what it was not.

To begin with, BI 2.0 is not about more suppliers, said Bitterer. “There are too many BI vendors,” he explained.

Read the full story (ZDNet)

Business Objects hits the Mid-market

Hoping to find a market among mid-range companies for sophisticated business intelligence (BI) tools, Business Objects has launched specially priced applications for SMEs.

There are three options with a variety of different features. These range from a standard edition with basic facilities, available now, through to a professional edition with data-integration facilities, which should be available in the second quarter of this year.

Read the full story (Silicon.com)

Let the battle for the mid-market commence

Enterprise software vendors have traditionally targeted large Global 3000/FTSE 250 companies with revenues of $1bn+. However, as the competitive pressures in corporates intensify and customers consolidate their suppliers, the “mid-market” is becoming an increasingly attractive target for vendors, especially as it fits well with the emerging SaaS (Software as a Service) business model.

The mid-market is loosely defined as those companies with revenues in the $50m – $500m range. These are typically manufacturing companies and subsidiaries of larger entities. Currently mid-market companies are best served by smaller vendors in performance management area such as Cartesis, Prophix, and Applix, who have all achieved excellent financial results for 2006. Similarly, LogiXML and QlikTech in the business intelligence market have thrived. Judging by their references and testimonials they are all doing a very good job of serving the mid-market.

Read the full story (Channel Register)

Business Intelligence Gets Collaborative

Over the next several years, expect to see the business-intelligence, collaboration and knowledge-management segments converge. Likewise, expect to see such interactive Web 2.0 technologies as AJAX, blogs and wikis revolutionize the business intelligence experience.

Collective intelligence is an organization’s most precious asset. It’s what makes the difference between a successful enterprise, one that can pool its expertise to address common opportunities and threats, and a competitive also-ran.

Read the full story (NewsFactor)

Microsoft releases pint sized SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition is the next version of SQL Server Mobile adding the desktop platform.

SQL Server Compact extends the SQL Server Mobile technology by offering a low maintenance, compact embedded database for single-user client applications for all Windows platforms including tablet PCs, pocket PCs, smart phones and desktops. Just as with SQL Server Mobile, SQL Server Compact is a free, easy-to-use, lightweight, and embeddable version of SQL Server 2005 for developing desktop and mobile applications.

Read the full story (Microsoft)