Bob Zurek

As we rapidly approach 2010, I find myself thinking about the future of business intelligence. Many have opinions about where things are headed so I thought I would take a few minutes to present some views based on many discussions with customers, prospects, business intelligence experts, business intelligence software vendors and new innovators.

Clearly we have seen a great deal of consolidation in the marketplace over the past 3 years, yet a number of BI companies with a long track record of success continue to remain independent and very strong. Examples include SAS, Informatica. QlikView and Microstrategy. All doing very well. A number of very popular open source business intelligence solutions have continued to show strong momentum including Jaspersoft, Pentaho and Actuate BIRT. On the consolidation front, IBM seems to have led the charge in significantly shoring up their previous weaknesses in offering a full business intelligence stack. Recent acquisitions include SPSS for predictive analytics, Cognos for a business intelligence stack and also, Applix for in memory analytics (acquired by Cognos and now part of IBM) and yes, good old Ascential Software (disclosure: I worked for Ascential). It still surprises me that some of the independents still remain independent, especially based on the strength of not only their products but also their core business and customer base. Over the course of 2010, I sense another wave of consolidation and some very sizable deals. I also expect that eventually we will see consolidation in the open source business intelligence market where the play will be the assembly of a best in breed counter to some of the current commercial offerings. More likely in the 2011 time frame than 2010. But one never knows. Let's explore a few other trends. 

Desktop Data Mart + Business Intelligence provides freedom and flexibility:

Some say our world is getting more and more connected. Yes, thats true, but take the case of those times when you are not connected and someone needs a key performing indicator, an analysis, a report or prediction or, you simply want to sit down without having to worry about an internet connection to do basic business intelligence whether in the comfort of your easy chair or while sitting on the train. With this in mind, we will see systems like Infobright sitting in a desktop ready to work away serving up query results for your disconnected analysis. Set up an extraction using your favorite ETL tool or code and pull from the data warehouse into your local desktop data mart (column based of course for high performance, small footprint, and low disk space utilization) and analyze away. We have several customers pursuing this initiative and I suspect we will see more over the course of 2010. I think by now you get the trend.

Contextual Relevance + Business Intelligence Will Provide More Insight:

Why work the data when you can put the data to work for you. Google serves up relevant ads based on your search results, why not Business Intelligence solutions. When I'm looking at an analysis, why not bring any relevant data about that analysis forward for consideration. For example, I'm now looking at a report that shows key people by company. Now I want to drill down into a company, but frankly I'm not quite sure about the details of the company. Is it public or private, how big is the company in terms of employees and revenue, etc. Why stop what I'm doing when looking at the analysis, I want the most up to date relevant information delivered in context to my analysis. The likely source... data service providers and yes even search engines. I just don't want to stop what I'm doing to look around, the relevant source data should be delivered to me at a moments notice and not always coded into the business intelligence solution. 

Location, Location, Location Intelligence:

One of the most interesting solution I've seen in a while is from a company called Spatial Key and well worth a peak. The website is www.spatialkey.com and has a very compelling set of demos to explore. We are now surrounded by maps. GPS, Weather, on our iPhones, and we are tracking lots and lots of data by location. In addition, companies like Safe Software (wow, nice name) has been tackling the integration of spatial data for quite some time with success  and being quite unique in the industry. With the URL of safe.com, imagine the worth of just the URL never mind all the great technology they have been building successfully over many years. Someone like Informatica or IBM should seriously consider making a play for Safe in 2010 as it would add significantly value to their businesses as the integration of spatial data becomes more and more central and important as a trend in the business intelligence space. Your now only seeing the tip of the proverbial ice berg when you look at the compelling technologies like Spatial Key. I suspect, more and more geo to show up in the context of business intelligence solutions. 

Its Social - Let's Collaborate, Are We Seeing The Same Thing Together?

When is the last time you made a business critical decision without getting input from others inside and sometimes outside your organization. I call it Business Intelligence Crowd Sourcing or The Twitter of Business Intelligence. For now, I haven't seen anything close to what I saw of a prototype while working at IBM and with the Many Eyes project early on. How many times have you been asked to review a powerpoint or spreadsheet which came to you as an attachment in email. Now how many times have you had the same thing happen with a business intelligence report or analysis. Wouldn't it make sense to have a central location where many can view, comment and annotate the report or analysis to provide you with critical insight and feedback on the analysis. Many attempts are being made, but so far, I've yet to see anyone hit the mark. My sense is by the end of 2010 we will see this come to realization in a business intelligence offering. 

That's it for now and I apologize for the delay in my blogs these days. We've been very, very busy here at Infobright as are business is growing rapidly which leaves less and less time to blog, but as part of my New Years resolution, I will attempt to do a better job. In the meantime, thanks for visiting, reading and I hope I've been helpful to you in some form. Be safe and all the best.