New Augmented Corporate Reality BI Prototype

Based on a blog post and proof-of-concept application earlier this year, I have been championing a SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center project to build an “augmented corporate reality” prototype. The idea stemmed from one of the key themes of my BI future directions presentations: that for the first time in centuries, new technology comes from the consumer world, not from governments and businesses, and so we need to adapt and adopt these technologies... [Read More...]

Xcelsius Dashboards on Your Android Mobile Phone

The latest release of Android, v2.2 (“Froyo”) supports the Adobe flash technology used by Xcelsius (now called Dashboard Design) and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. So now you can access your dashboards, reports, and exploration spaces directly from your mobile device without requiring a separate application (e.g. as you do for the iPhone and iPad). It also means you can reuse all the effort you’ve put into developing Xcelsius dashboards and... [Read More...]

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPad Demo

Here’s a short demo that shows off the new free SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPad interface. Use it against our demo server, your own corporate Explorer server (VPN permitting, of course), or sign up for a free account at http://bi.ondemand.com and use Explorer online, or on your iPhone, or your iPad…  Read More →

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPhone Now Available on Apple AppStore!

The iPhone version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer from the SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center was (finally!) released today on the Apple iStore, available as a free download Here’s the description of the application: “Your business at your fingertips” With Explorer for iPhone, insight into your business is never more than a few flicks away. Through simple keyword search, navigation and visualization, Explorer allows you to ask and answer... [Read More...]

Twitter and Text Analysis to Help You Surf Through Traffic

The first official SAP iPhone application is already available on iTunes. Unfortunately, it’s probably not much use to you unless you happen to be reading this in Brisbane, Australia. But the free application, created by the folks in the SAP Research center who brought you the Google Wave / SAP “Gravity” prototype, is a wonderful example of what Web 2.0 technology can do in today’s increasingly wired world. Here’s the blurb from the... [Read More...]

The End of Relational Databases?

Hasso Plattner, SAP’s co-founder, chairman, and “Chief Software Advisor” has been giving a series of talks including his keynote at SAPPHIRE 2009 on why in his view “disk has become yesterday’s tape”, and why column storage and in-memory techniques are the future for both data warehousing AND enterprise applications, displacing the 20-year reign of relational databases. Experts have advocated column databases such as Sybase IQ and LucidDB... [Read More...]

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer was recently launched at SAPPHIRE. Here’s a long list of Explorer product, trial, customer, technical, and press links that I’m aware of so far. Product Overviews Explorer aims to meet the high expectations of today’s business users, by combining the simplicity and speed of Internet search with high-performance and instant response times. You can employ familiar business terms to find relevant information across... [Read More...]

Here Comes Web 3.0: Wolfram|Alpha Launches Today

Wikipedia defines Web 3.0 as the “semantic web”, “making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.” We’ll get a step closer to that vision when Wolfram|Alpha (or maybe just “WolframAlpha” – their web site uses both) launches later today.   Wolfram|Alpha is a product from Wolfram Research (famous for its beautiful Mathematica software) that has been generating... [Read More...]

Want to Experience SAP BusinessObjects Explorer? Try This Micro-Finance Demo!

As I mentioned in the previous post, SAP launched the new BusinessObjects Explorer Accelerated product today. You can try out the product and learn how microfinance is helping reduce global poverty by visiting the excellent SAP BusinessObjects Explorer demo at http://microfinance.sap.com. It will challenge you to find answers to a few questions, and you’ll be able to do so, quickly and easily, without any training, using the intuitive new Explorer... [Read More...]

A New Data Architecture for Faster, Better BI: SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

Today at the SAPPHIRE user conference in Orlando, SAP announced it would “revolutionize BI with a new solution that delivers insight at the speed of thought”. The new package is called SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Accelerated, and it combines the search and visualization capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects Polestar (now renamed SAP BusinessObjects Explorer) with SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA). Photo: SAP CEO Léo Apotheker showing that... [Read More...]