The Intelligent Enterprise Blog

Interactive Dashboards: US.Gov Aces, Wimbledon Double Faults

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:16:57 -0500

The US government has unveiled a dashboard to track IT spending, which looks at first sight a shining example of the power and value of business intelligence. The Wimbledon tennis dashboard, on the other hand, appears less than impressive�

As reported in The New York Times, the so-called IT Dashboard was put together by the US government in a remarkably short six weeks, and will "track and analyze the more than $70 billion a year that the federal government spends on information technology."

CEP, Events, and Continuous {Transformation | Intelligence}

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:52:51 -0500

Given that BI thought leaders are wrestling with the notion of events, perhaps we will see a BI-mainstreaming of event processing in the not-too-distant future. Myself, I was way ahead of the game in my expectations of demand for BI access to stream sources. While a combination of legacy database and analytical technology has held BI back, lack of perception of need has been a far greater factor, especially given the under-utilization of conventional BI decades after the term first became popular.

Interest in streams and events has definitely picked up in the last few months -- I've reported on novel applications for "continuous transformation" and otherwise done a bit of writing to promote awareness -- and next year could very well be the break-out year for BI on data and event streams.

Mulling the Mystery of Microsoft's BI Market Share

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:47:07 -0500

How do you gauge Microsoft's business intelligence market share when it gives BI functionality away for free? That was a bit of a puzzle even before Microsoft's January announcement that it would end development of the PerformancePoint Server, the one and only entirely BI-focused product the company had. As part of that move, Microsoft now bundles what it calls "PerformancePoint Services" -- dashboarding, scorecarding and analytic capabilities -- into the enterprise edition of SharePoint. That's bundled as in free, just as Reporting Services and Analysis Services have long been bundled with Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft's BI front end is Excel, the general-purpose spreadsheet tool that's part of the Office suite -- seldom purchased separately or used exclusively for BI.

So now if you own Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint (Enterprise) and Office, you already own Microsoft BI, and these days, Microsoft executives take every opportunity to point that out. In an interview earlier this month, Kristina Kerr, group product manager of Microsoft BI told me, "the move we made in January has definitely spurred on a lot of growth and a lot of interest in BI among SharePoint Enterprise customers. These are tough economic times, so a lot of customers are looking internally to see what they already own and see how they can make the most of it."

Twisting Terms to Make BI Market Share Claims

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:18:25 -0500

I always look forward to IDC's annual BI market shares, waiting to see who comes out on top and who is losing ground. I'm sure everyone noticed that they were, in fact, a month early this year! Call me a bean counter at-heart, but I like the irrefutable, quantifiable comparison they bring that other evaluations (including my own BI Scorecard) lack. Or so one would think.

Most product evaluations involve a degree of subjectivity, with varying definitions and opinions of what capabilities and criteria matter more. The IDC market share figures, on the other hand, are cold-hard facts: what were the revenues, who's leading, who's growing. While such data may have been somewhat trackable on 10Ks when BI vendors were independent, it's now largely impossible as BI is often but a small part of a larger company. Software vendors don't have to report their revenues by market segment, and throughout the year, we only get vague, imprecise references about how the BI business is going. The IDC report lays out the breakdown by vendor.

Bucking the Cloud Computing Hype

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:12:24 -0500

Years ago I was running a large software development shop when the "offshoring" movement became all that and a bag of chips. I felt extreme pressure to fire some of my staff in the US and cut a deal with the dozens of outsourcing firms that were calling me daily. I was asked about offshoring so many times that it was clear to me that the pressure was on.

I had to buck the offshoring hype at the time, but for good reasons. First, our systems had issues around quality and architecture. Until we corrected those issues, bundling the code up for development offshore would do little good, and could actually kill the software. Once we stabilized the code, then I could pick portions of it to be developed in outsourced development shops, but not until then. It was very tough explaining that to laymen who just saw the dollars and cents, along with the trend and hype that told them offshoring was the way to go.

When Business Gets Too Personal

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:50:48 -0500

Visualization guru Stephen Few reminds us that analyst opinions, while offered by recognized experts, are inherently personal, and that on the other side of the table, there are real people behind products, marketing campaigns, and corporate decisions. I'll amplify that each of us does bring unique personal experience and even personality to bear when reviewing (analysts) or promoting (vendors) products, and I'll agree that we should each be accountable for what we write or claim.

It's an analyst's personal perspective, coupled with strong judgment, communications skills, and fairness, that creates a sense of authority and makes his or her views worth reading. Good analysts don't blindly accept vendor claims. We investigate, and sometimes we reject what we've been told. But I disagree with Steve that analysts should always name names. Some situations become simply too personal. I and others I know have even been the subject vindictive behavior, which unhelpfully diverts attention from products to people. In the worst cases I've seen, the vendor can even exploit personal conflict to dismiss or attempt to denigrate the analyst.

Will OMG Set a Standard for Case Management?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:18:09 -0500

The vote on BPMN 2.0 is not the only thing on the agenda at this week's Object Management Group (OMG) meeting in Costa Rica. There is also the release of an RFP for a new Case Management standard, authored by Henk de Man of Cordys.

The RFP asserts that BPMN is inadequate for case management but that case management should leverage BPMN for the "process" part, and I agree with that. It also seeks to tie in to OMG government task force efforts on records management for the case folder part. That might be useful as an option, but I hope it's not a requirement.

Summer Reading: IR, Sentiment Analysis, and Visualization

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:04:58 -0500

Summer's slower pace allows time to work through material set aside for calmer days. What's on your reading list? Mine includes a variety of papers and also longer works on Information Retrieval, Sentiment Analysis, and Visualization. The items on my list are technical and accessible (which is not the same as easy), of potential interest to anyone who works with analytics. I've paged through them and plan to take a deeper dive. TechWeb readers might also find them worth at least a quick look.

Transition Strategies for Enterprise 2.0 Adoption

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:37:58 -0500

At this week's Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, Lee Bryant of Headshift looked at the adoption challenges for 2.0 technologies in companies that have grown up around a centralized model of IT, particularly for the second wave adopters required to move Enterprise 2.0 into the mainstream within an organization. He points out that we can't afford the high-friction, high-cost model of deploying technology and processes, but need to rebalance the role of people within the enterprise.

External tools are subject to evolutionary forces and either adapt or die quickly, whereas we are forced to put up with Paleolithic-era tools inside the enterprise because it's a captive market. 21st century enterprises, however, aren't putting up with that: they're going outside and getting the best possible tools for their uses on demand, rather than waiting for IT to provide a second-rate solution, months or years later.

Is the LucidEra Over?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:46:53 -0500

Chris Kanaracus of The Industry Standard reported yesterday that SaaS-base BI vendor LucidEra is set to shutter the business and put all assets up for sale. The story named only "a person familiar with the company's situation" as the source. There's no official word on the Web site and all my attempts to reach the company have failed thus far.

[Update: Darren Cunningham, LucidEra's VP of Marketing, responded to inquiries 6/23 at 3:40 pm ET with the following e-mail message:

All that I can say at this time is that our product and pipeline were both stronger than they'd ever been. Customer adoption was growing, which was reflected in the 20+ 5-star reviews on the Salesforce AppExchange since January. We got hit by just really, really bad timing to have to be raising our next round of funding in this economic climate.

Right now, various options are being looked at in the best interest of our creditors, customers, employees, and shareholders. There should be resolution for everyone involved soon so there is an orderly transition.]

Enterprise 2.0 Reality Check

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:38:13 -0500

I'm at this week's Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston watching the panel entitled "Enterprise 2.0 Reality Check: What's Working, What's Not, What's Next," moderated by Matthew Fraser, and featuring Christian Finn of Microsoft, Nate Nash of BearingPoint, Neil Callahan of mktg and Ross Mayfield of Socialtext. Amazingly, I've found the optimal way to do this is to go back to my room and watch it streaming over the Web, since the wifi is completely overloaded in the conference area and the seating is cramped.

It's always difficult to blog a panel since the topics tend to vary widely (and quickly), so just a few thoughts:

What's Your Secret to Success?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:24:44 -0500

Two years ago, as part of the research for this book, you helped me identify those factors that most make or break your BI deployment. I'd like to know if anything has changed since then.

Take the updated survey here. As before, it's not vendor-sponsored.
Is the economy helping or hurting your BI efforts? Maybe a down economy is forcing you to work smarter, or maybe layoffs and budget cuts are putting a dent in your BI strategy. Two years ago, 42% of you had standardized on a BI platform (see chart below). Have industry consolidation or the economy changed that? And if so, which vendors are you standardizing on?

IBM 'Clouds' Look Like Conventional IT

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:57:13 -0500

According to this e-Week report, and this report in the New York Times, IBM continues to form its cloud computing strategy, including the definition of some key products.

IBM will announce a number of new cloud computing products and services... In addition, IBM will unveil plans for a new research lab focused on cloud computing. The initial plans will be for a bundle of hardware, software and services aimed at software developers and testers, and another bundle targeting virtual desktop environments. The moves come at a time when every major IT player, including HP, Cisco, VMware, Microsoft, Google and Amazon, are making deeper in-roads into the cloud.

The issue here is that cloud computing is really about, well, cloud computing. Existing hardware and software vendors, including Microsoft, Cisco, HP, etc., and of course IBM, seem to find that thought a bit scary and continue to toss traditional hardware and software at the problem.

Will .Gov Sites Nix Cookies for Analytics?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:01:30 -0500

We may be on the verge of significant changes to US Federal government policy on the use of persistent cookies. The White House blog is inviting comment on how a new cookie policy should be shaped. I've posted my comments on the site and have reprinted them here.

My recommendations for a new policy are fairly straightforward:

iManage & iPhone: Something New, Something Old

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:57:12 -0500

Search-cum-enteprise content management (ECM) vendor Autonomy has announced an integration for its recently acquired WorkSite product with the iPhone. The WorkSite product is particularly well known and widely used within the Legal community. Smart mobile devices are increasingly usurping the role of laptops as the mobile computing device of choice, so secure access to documents in your ECM system via the iPhone makes a great deal of sense, particularly if you are an on-the-move attorney.

One small point of annoyance with this particular announcement is that it claims the iPhone integration to be the first of its kind. It's not, and in the spirit of debunking myths let me just remind the PR folk at Autonomy of the following: