Cubegeek

The Future of BI is Apps?

or maybe branded OEM analytic technology in integrated applications.

I haven't had the great fortune to spend much time inside any of the big web-based ERP apps. I have used Niku and I think it was very sweet. I've also used Oracle's time & expense management systems and I can't begin to describe the great horror of its suckitude. I've peeked over the shoulders of of SAP folks and I didn't see anything stunning there, and Siebel 4 years ago was a complicated monster that is not bloodly likely to be improved. After all, people who actually have to make journal entries and call center logs don't get much input on UI matters.

So with that qualification, I will say that BI apps are generally far better on the UI than are ERP apps. And I think it goes without saying that programmers who grew up on ER still have difficulty thinking multidimensionally. So to the extent that there is any art left at all in the science of presenting screens to people looking for information, the BI players have a serious leg up.

I would also say even as a rival, that there are few products out there that are as crisp and beautiful as Cognos Powerplay.

All that means that integration between BI and ERP is technically difficult enough but that some very serious thought has to go into seamlessly integrating an analytical experience into the workflow of an otherwise humdrum transaction system. It's going to keep a lot of people busy for a long time.

I think what's more likely to happen is the same kind of thing that happened in CRM. A smaller player is going to build a beautiful and seamless interface and win customers off the big boys way before change trickles down.

I'm also counting on a new generation of interfaces, some years post-Vista. In fact, one of my million dollar ideas is to bring some videogame designers into this space. Think of the big glass desk in 'The Island' or Tom Cruise' murder machine in 'The Minority Report'. All of my gut tells me that no self-respecting CEO will be without a hi-def 16:9 realtime EIS in 4 years.

And why should they be?

Tableau Goes 2.0

Seattle based start-up Tableau Software Inc has released a 2.0 upgrade for its namesake data visualization tool that packs in over 100 new and upgraded features that are aimed at driving greater adoption across the enterprise.

Kevin Brown, vice president of marketing at Tableau, said the new software builds on the 1.5 release last October, fleshing out functionality in areas like data connectivity, modeling, statistical analysis and general improvements to the user interface.

Brown singled out several key features, notably the ability to do more sophisticated types of analyses, including calculations like moving averages, compound growth rates, cumulative totals, that previous versions of the tool lacked.

Tableau has also introduced a new patented trending capability as a first stab at predictive analysis and forecasting. This is a lightweight capability where users can basically append trend lines to one or more dimensions of data via a single click.

"We're allowing for much deeper analysis and have created an extended library of functions that comes with explanatory visual cues [called drop lines] to help and guide users in their analyses."

The modeling capabilities of the tool have also been bumped up. There is now a new graphical way to access and join relational tables via simple point and click.

And a new offline capability coupled with support for random sampling of data now gives users the flexibility to analyze larger databases and disconnect from the relational database server to do their analysis. Users can later reconnect and synchronize their work.

"Once you've done an analysis against a sample set of data you can capture the logic and run it against other sets. You can even disconnect and take it on the road with you," Brown said.

The offline capability will strike a chord for customers like Accenture and Booze Hamilton, whose consultants are always on the move.

Brown categorized the remainder of the 2.0 improvements as "creature comforts" that primarily relate to user interface functionality. These include data playback (paging and animation) and detachable filtering tools.

Looking ahead Brown said that Tableau 3.0 is expected in the first quarter of next year. He said it would be a significant release with new enterprise web deployment options and collaboration and sharing capabilities.

Tableau's desktop tool cleverly blends data visualization with relational and multidimensional databases to let users graphically query and analyze data through an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

Under the covers, the software is built around a proprietary query language engine called VizQL, which unlike declarative SQL queries that return results as text or numeric data marries a database query directly to a visual response.

The software has canned connectivity to relational, multidimensional, flat file and other data sources via a native relational interfaces (it doesn't use a generic ODBC connector) and MDX flavors (for OLAP sources).

The philosophy behind Tableau's software is simple: to get people to use visualization as a core and valuable part of the analysis process itself, not just the net result [of the analysis].

"The typical paradigm is to analyze data in Excel and finish with a chart. We want to make visualization the journey, not the destination," Brown said.

Tableau was launched 15 months ago by one of the founding employees of Pixar Animation Studios and has swelled into a 30-man outfit that includes five PhDs in data visualization.

The company has accrued nearly 1,000 customers so far, including Global 2000 firms like General Motors and Safeway, and expects to briskly add another 300 or so customers by the end this year.

Tableau is privately held and does not disclose financials. But Brown claims it has just completed its sixth consecutive quarter of growth in terms of bookings and revenue. "We're in the millions of dollars [of revenue] now," Brown said.

Tableau has also struck some interesting partnerships, notably with business intelligence vendor Hyperion Solutions Corp, which currently OEM's Tableau's software as a private label under its Visual Explorer brand.

Brown said Hyperion recently renewed this OEM for another four years.

He hinted of more OEM announcements with other ISVs in the coming year.

Tableau might still be waiting for data visualization to hit the business mainstream, but Brown asserts the company isn't necessarily going after classical BI and analytic users. Nor is the company seeking to displace the big players in this space.

"Our non-traditional [BI] business is ramping up massively."

By non-traditional, Brown means business (i.e. non-technical) users that need to quickly and simply analyze and don't have the tools to do it.

"These are people that have questions of data and need answers easily."

He points to customers like Microsoft's XBox division, which uses Tableau's software to visually analyze character actions and events in video games, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which users the software for ticketing and sales analysis, as good examples of Tableau's target audience.

"They have unusual data analysis needs and would never buy or use a traditional BI tools in a million years," he said. "Whether they talk about this as BI is another matter. But [Tableau's] approach resonates with them much better."

Nevertheless Brown acknowledged that Tableau needs to work alongside BI tools.

"All the big corporations already have BI. We're never going to replace them just like we're not going to displace Excel. We're continuing to sell into companies like Boeing that have almost every BI product under the sun."

Tableau might be content to position its software as a complement to existing BI front-end query and tools. But some BI vendors are now starting to take a much greater interest in data visualization as an enabling technology for better analysis and reporting.

For example, Business Objects SA bought data visualization specialist Infommersion Inc last November to develop Crystal Xcelsius, an interactive visual analysis tool for Excel spreadsheets. And earlier this year Microsoft got its hand on front-end visualization software through its ProClarity Corp acquisition.

Tableau also competes against companies like Spotfire Inc and Cognos Inc who also have a strong data visualization component in their BI suites.

Octopus in a Box

Hyperion's got the technology but they don't have the marketing, nor the pure technical implementation team to handle BO. BO is 'intuitive' to SQL geeks who work for 50 bucks an hour and know squat about BI but have 6 months to come up with something halfway decent. And once that spaghetti is in place it sticks like cement in the IT infrastructure. There isn't a single sales rep in the entire Hyperion universe who knows how to pry that BO crap out of IT, despite the fact that System 9 is more capable, technically.

Ask somebody who knows Brio inside and out how they do against BO. 'We don't see BO'. HYSL is not invited to the party.

Hyperion doesn't market themselves on posters in airports. Not on radio. Not on billboards. Not on popups or banner ads on the web. Not in colleges and universities. Not at career fairs. Not at technical conferences. Not at NASCAR.. How much brains does it take to get somebody to teach Essbase at DeVry? More brains, apparently than anybody at HYSL has.

Hyperion only markets to the same venues Hyperion people have been traveling for the past decade. It's a club, and there is no new blood, fresh markets or expansion in sight. Hyperion is all about incrementalism. They don't want to be a bold, innovative and dynamic software company bent on revolutionizing anything. That would be offensive to the bean-counter culture. What they need is an upstart bean-counter counter-culture. An accountant that wears his green eyeshades backwards and listens to Korn on ogg vorbis. Not a bunch of Prius-driving pansies in polo shirts.

Everybody in the Hyperion universe is afraid of offending the golden goose of applications that CFOs 'get'. Plus they suspect anybody who isn't a CPA or MBA of not 'getting it'. But what sense does it make to market to your only practical competency? That's using marketing defensively. You should market offensively. Well, you should if you care about growth.

Take a look around at the young guys who run technical support in your average IT shop. The PC support guys, the junior programmers, the hackers, the first level managers. They are in no way under the spell of Hyperion. But Hyperion, in selling top down instead of bottom up in only capable of selling one CFO's pet project at a time, instead of being a fundamental technology that the IT department buys into. That's why HYSL products are isolated and companies don't grow their own support infrastructure around it. It's why it can be easily replaced and challenged by competing technologies.

It's hard to see where Hyperion could go wrong strategically. Their brand is so strong in BPM (and maybe they just don't realize it) and their people are so focused on the market they have now, that they could milk it forever. Five years from now, they'll be doing the same thing, only better. But it will still be the same thing. That means one and only one thing.. a market so well understood and saturated that it will have to be consolidated, under a larger more well financed company.

So that's the question...does Hyperion have a corporate spirit of daring and innovation that could not be easily assimilated, or are they just a square peg in search of a square hole? Here's the clue. The four most exciting products around Hyperion's technology (Master Data Management, Upstream, Star Integration Server & Hyperion Visual Explorer) were all not invented at Hyperion. Other people see the future of integration and innovation first, Hyperion sees it second.

I think Hyperion is a powerful octopus in very lovely box, but I don't see any tentacles, do you?

Cognos Sees Skills Shortage

Published 15th June 2006

Launch of Cognos Academy to combat skills shortage and train 8,000 consultants...

LONDON, England, June 15, 2006 – Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, is predicting that the growing trend for business intelligence systems will lead to a BI skills crisis by 2009.

“We’ve found that the consultants with the wisdom, experience and BI skills needed in the current marketplace are concentrated within the older age groups. There is a severe shortage of skilled BI consultants amongst the 25-35 year-old band,” said Graham Walter, vice president UK, Middle East and South Africa at Cognos.

“It’s great to see the BI market going from strength to strength, and companies viewing it as a vital component of managing performance to ensure business success. But much more needs to be done now to ensure that the market has access to people with the required skills to meet this growing demand.”

According to analyst house Gartner, the global BI market is set to grow over seven per cent each year for the next four years, creating a market worth $3bn in 2009[1]. With the demand for BI set to dominate the industry, consultants must be trained in the suitable skills to handle this.

“The demand for BI skills from leading technology consultancies is growing, however we are finding there is not the supply of qualified workers,” said Stuart Britton, managing director of SEC Recruitment. “I would estimate that, on average, there is one person for every three vacancies. If nothing is done about this, the lack of BI skills could easily become the most challenging aspect of IT recruitment.”

In response, Cognos has launched the Cognos Academy, a mix of self-study, and classroom that will help new and existing Cognos consultants upgrade their skills and obtain a Cognos 8 BI Professional Certification. The global demand is predicted to be high, with an estimate of 8,000 BI consultants to be trained in the next three years.

“Business intelligence is fast becoming a desktop application used at all levels across companies, so it is creating a real demand for staff with relevant experience in rolling out and maintaining BI applications,” continued Walter. “The Cognos Academy is designed to provide consultants with all the skills they need.”

Courses at the Cognos Academy will also be available by invitation to Cognos customers who are working to set up in-house BI Competency Centres.

“An increasing number of enterprise customers are setting up BI Competency Centres to drive adoption and best practice within their organisations. We are keen to support this vision and provide the skills and knowledge where we can.”

“A BI skills shortage is an industry-wide problem that will affect all companies delivering business intelligence solutions,” concluded Walter. “The industry must wake up to the need for change and put in place measures to ensure the industry isn’t held back.”