SAP BusinessObjects Mobile BI Directions

Here’s a video from this years SAPPHIRE NOW in Madrid, featuring Mimi Speir, Steve Lucas, and Andrew Murray giving an overview of SAP BusinessObjects mobile directions: Highlights include: New SAP BusinessObjects experience mobile application, based on the Exploration Views functionality from the BusinessObjects innovation center, with demo data from Experience.SAP.com Easily take a mobile analysis and create a StreamWork activity for collaborative... [Read More...]

Mastering SAP BusinessObjects Conference 2010

I’m in Melbourne for the Mastering SAP BusinessObjects Annual User Conference. There’s a great agenda including talks from Dave Rathbun of PepsiCo, Ingo Hilgefort of SAP BusinessObjects (the man who literally wrote the book on Web Intelligence — and Explorer, and BusinessObjects with BW), Tom Nather of Cleveland Clinic, Mark Rousel of Sydney Water, Rajeev Kapur of Newell Rubbermaid, and many, many others. The hashtage for the conference... [Read More...]

RoamBI – Beautiful Mobile BI for the iPad

RoamBI for iPhone, which I reviewed last year, has long been the best-looking mobile BI application available in the market. Now the folks at RoamBI have been one of the very first vendors worldwide to come out with an updated application for the iPad, and they provided me with one in order to test their brand-new version. First Impressions It’s as beautiful as its predecessor, and the new document formats available use the new expanded workspace... [Read More...]

Explorer OnDemand for the iPhone (and soon the iPad)

I’ve already written extensively about the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer product, the Explorer in the cloud prototype (now a product, as part of BI OnDemand), and the Explorer for iPhone application. Now all of these have come together to provide “instant value”. You simply sign up for a free account at the BI OnDemand website, upload any data set you want, and then consume easily and intuitively on the road using the free Explorer for iPhone... [Read More...]

A Big Cryptographic Boost for On-Demand BI and Extranets?

A recent cryptographic breakthrough made by Craig Gentry that potentially has huge consequences for business intelligence. One of the big problems plaguing the use of on-demand business intelligence has been concerns over data security. As Forbes and others have reported, the new techniques could reassure companies who want to take benefit of cloud computing for analysis (at a cost of massive computing power). As IBM Research VP Charles Lickel notes... [Read More...]

BI Is Indeed Counter-Cyclical: Market Shares

It’s official: according to Gartner, as reported by Mary Hayes Weier in Information Week, business intelligence is indeed counter-cyclical (see earlier post on Why Will 2009 be a Great Year for Business Intelligence). Despite the tough economic climate, BI is growing at a healthy 22%, with SAP/Business Objects leading the pack with 24% of the market, or $2.1 billion in sales last year. Here are the market shares, in Xcelsius: