Business Intelligence Journal

Microsoft achieved key milestones within the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, including IDC’s recognizing Microsoft as one of the fastest-growing BI vendors in 2006. In IDC’s report, “Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2006 Vendor Shares,” analysts found that Microsoft had a growth rate of 28 percent, the highest among the top 10 industry vendors. In addition, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 was acknowledged by The OLAP Report as the No. 1 online analytical processing (OLAP) server on the market.

Microsoft’s continued investment in delivering high-performing, low-cost BI solutions for all business users via the Microsoft Office experience and SQL Server 2005 has customers taking notice. Read the rest »

Cognos announced that Nestlé has selected Cognos 8 Business Intelligence to complement its SAP Business Warehouse reporting solution.

Nestlé has already deployed SAP Business Warehouse as its global standard for data warehousing and analytical reporting. The company will use Cognos 8 BI to complement the SAP Business Warehouse front end to give power users the ability to handle ad hoc reporting and grouping of data. It also provides the ability to merge external data from any source with data from SAP Business Warehouse, push pre-formatted and easily printable reports to end users, and adapt reports in line with different user needs. Read the rest »

MassHousing, a provider of affordable housing for both individuals and major developments across Massachusetts, needed a flexible and robust BI solution capable of generating an integrated portal reporting system for its Executive Information System (EIS), which bridges six separate business divisions: Home Ownership, Rental Development, Rental Management, Corporate, Mortgage, Insurance and MassHousing Overall. MassHousing selected Cognos BI over competitive products because of Cognos’ ability to adapt to changes that occur within the data, as well as its simplified maintenance and administration. By combining Cognos BI solutions with the EIS, MassHousing employees can gain an accurate and integrated view of key information across the entire organization, for a complete, holistic view of the agency’s key information. Read the rest »

SeaTab Software announced the launch of PivotLink OnDemand 4.0, the latest version of its BI offering. This marks a significant milestone in the company’s long-standing focus on putting the full power and value of business intelligence in the hands of every business user, providing solutions that deliver unsurpassed end-user access and control of powerful BI functionality.

The new version offers a new user interface that represents a significant advancement in usability and visual appeal. It includes such features as intuitive drag-and-drop report configuration, easy-to-use conditional alerts and fully interactive, rich data visualizations. The release also supports the company’s growing business in embedded BI by enabling rapid creation of user-interface “skins”, enabling customers and OEM partners to quickly and easily customize and brand PivotLink OnDemand in their own environments. Read the rest »

To support its growing business intelligence (BI) initiatives, Life Fitness, a division of Brunswick Corp. (NYSE: BC), has consolidated its BI and data warehousing platforms on Oracle. Life Fitness selected Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE) to replace its existing BI solution and is upgrading its data warehouse to Oracle Database 10g Release 2. Life Fitness is the global leader in designing and manufacturing a full line of reliable, high-quality fitness equipment for commercial and home use. Read the rest »

MicroStrategy announced its plans to launch MicroStrategy Mobile(TM), a new product that delivers timely BI information directly to BlackBerry(R) smartphones from Research In Motion (RIM) . MicroStrategy Mobile will be introduced tomorrow at the MicroStrategy Symposium in London.

MicroStrategy Mobile provides mobile workers with access to BI reports on their BlackBerry smartphones. With MicroStrategy Mobile, business users will receive the same reports on their BlackBerry smartphone as they receive on their desktop, without the need for reformatting or retrofitting existing reports. The report manipulation features available in MicroStrategy Mobile allow users to view even the largest reports within the compact screen size of the BlackBerry smartphone. Read the rest »

Nearly 60 percent of respondents agree that knowledge workers throughout organizations should have access to Business Intelligence capabilities.

A new survey of business intelligence (BI) professionals worldwide reveals that while they overwhelmingly believe that their companies can benefit from the insights BI provides, the perceived high costs of implementing a BI system have prevented more than two-thirds of them from doing so throughout their firms.

A majority of survey respondents also believe that corporate-wide implementation of BI systems supports the opportunity for greater insight and wider access. They said it delivers increased value over department-level BI, even though the latter may cost less and provide a more targeted focus to specific information. Read the rest »

To improve service to its customers and to enhance member health outcomes, CIGNA HealthCare has selected SAS business intelligence (BI) to help analyze and communicate critical information in support of its health outreach and health advocacy programs. CIGNA has been a customer of SAS, the leader in business intelligence and analytics, for more than 20 years.

CIGNA HealthCare is one of the largest health services businesses in the United States and provides medical benefits plans, dental coverage, behavioral health coverage, pharmacy benefits, and products and services that integrate and analyze information to support consumerism and health advocacy. Read the rest »

Netezza Corporation announced a partnership with Manthan Systems, a provider of business intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions for retailers. The combination of the Netezza Performance Server system and Manthan‘s ARC retail BI suite provides a high-performance business intelligence solution that integrates data from disparate information systems in a centralized, easy-to-access repository, enabling reporting, analysis and collaboration based on common business rules.

ARC is a retail data warehouse and an integrated BI suite specifically architected for retail. As a specialized product exclusively built for retail, ARC dramatically reduces the deployment lifecycle and the total cost of ownership by cutting down the time needed to customize a business intelligence platform to the retail industry‘s specific needs. ARC’s retail data model variants enable various retail analytic formats like fashion & apparel, food & grocery, specialty and mass merchandise. Read the rest »

Actuate Corporation announced the informative results of its 2007 Open Source Software Survey, conducted across North America, Germany and the United Kingdom. Actuate Corporation is the founder and co-sponsor of the Open Source Business Intelligence project, BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools), with the Eclipse Foundation.

This global survey focused on the following key areas concerning Open Source software: awareness and adoption levels; benefits and barriers to adoption; adoption influences and Open Source Business Intelligence (BI). More than six hundred IT and business professionals from financial services and other industries provided detailed data showing enhanced awareness and adoption of Open Source software. The results indicate that 42.9 percent of respondents are already using Open Source, 23.6 percent are currently using Open Source BI and 31.2 percent are likely or very likely to consider using Open Source BI solutions. Read the rest »