MTG’s Ron Moore on Why Finance Departments Should Drive BI

December 22, 2008

MTG Founder Ron Moore says that Finance and IT both want the same thing — for the company to succeed — but that the tasks for which they are responsible can conflict with each other. The key is for Finance to take control of BI projects. Both sides of the equation, however, must be sensitive to the needs of the other.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Interviews | Leave a Comment

News Podcast: Open Source BI Vendor Pentaho Works with UK’s NHS

December 17, 2008

Lance Walter, the Vice President of Marketing at open source BI vendor Pentaho, says that a deployment with the National Health Service in the U.K. is the first publicized use of its data mining platform for health care. The NHS is leveraging the platform
to extend an existing application that mines data from previous patients to enable intervention with at-risk populations.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Interviews | 5 Comments

Special Note: An Invitation from Aberdeen

December 17, 2008

The Aberdeen Group is offering two free reports to those who participate in a 15-minute online study.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Business Intelligence | Leave a Comment

The Smartest Companies Don’t Stovepipe BI Projects

December 15, 2008

David Hatch, a Principal Analyst for the Aberdeen Group, says that best-in-breed retailers break down stovepipes between different areas of the organization by implementing enterprise-wide business intelligence guidelines. Hatch recently released a report — written with Senior Research Analyst Sahir Anand — entitled Increasing Retail Productivity: Enterprise-Wide Business Intelligence. The report says that IT and business departments have to sit down before projects being and have a conversation that, Hatch says, “actually is very difficult.”

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

The View From Here: More Focus, More Specifics, More BI

December 12, 2008

The idea behind The IT-Finance Connection–that communications between IT and other departments is paramount–remains vital. Going forward, we will apply that message specifically to business intelligence.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Business Intelligence | 1 Comment

TIBCO Unveils Spotfire S+ Version 8.1

December 12, 2008

TIBCO Software this week released TIBCO Spotfire S+ version 8.1. The company says it is its first S-PLUS language product. TIBCO says it is a statistical programming platform offering a fully integrated development environment, a commercially supported analystic packing system and the ability to scale a desktop to manipulate gigabyte class data sets. Read More…

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Business Intelligence | Leave a Comment

BlueCrest Taps Streambase, Vertica

December 12, 2008

The first fruits of the partnership between StreamBase and Vertica was announced last week. BlueCrest Capital Management, a European hedge fund with more than $15 billion in assets under management, chose the companies to provide what the press release calls “an innovative real-time market data management application infrastructure.” Read More…

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Business Intelligence | Leave a Comment

SAM They Can (if They Plan)

December 10, 2008

Everybody agrees that Software Asset Management–SAM–is important, but the IT and purchasing departments approach the problem from different perspectives. Matt Fisher, the Director of Centennial Products at FrontRange Solutions, says that it is vital that they get on the same page. The keys, he says, are technology and solid planning.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

White Paper from Coral8

December 8, 2008

Coral8 has released a white paper written by Alta Plana Corp. consultant Seth Grimes entitled Delivering Real-Time BI with Complex Event Processing. The paper describes the advantages of combining CEP and traditional business intelligence. Together, these tools provide what Coral8 describes as Continuous Intelligence and lead to faster decision making and proactive solutions across the company.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Business Intelligence | Leave a Comment

IBM Upgrades InfoSphere

December 8, 2008

The new version of IBM’s InfoSphere Traceability Server can provide information that fulfills CS1 EPCglobal’s Electronic Product Code Information Sharing standard (EPCIS) on items as they move through the supply chain, the company says. The company says that ITS is uses in the pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing, distribution and other industries.