The launch of BI 4.0 in Paris was one of the most interesting I’ve attended. It took place in the Salle Gaveau theatre in Paris on the afternoon of May 9th. In front of a packed crowd, journalist and editor Frédéric Simmottel of O1 Informatique welcomed everybody to the event.

He invited Laurent Leenhardt, director of Business Analytics in France, up on stage to discuss the agenda and outline the main themes of the show.

Next came a round-table interview with Hervé Couturier, R&D director for SAP, responsible for Business Analytics and SAP Research Labs, Eric Poutrin, in charge of BI strategy for Air France, and Laurent Gaultier, the BI director for Accenture France.

Air France explained that the company “sell a real time product and needs fast, simple to use, actionable info in the hands of operational managers”, emphasizing that data quality is essential, and that the KLM merger had been a great opportunity to work on a single vision for the group.

Two other videos followed. The first featured Bernard Liautaud, founder of BusinessObjects and now member of VC company Balderton Capital, and now on the SAP Supervisory Board, congratulating everybody on this first big release since the acquisition:

The second featured vignettes of BusinessObjects developers (a large part of the analytics development is done in the SAP BusinessObjects offices in Levallois, just outside of Paris) discussing what they liked about the new version (in French):

Next came the demonstration section, hosted by Vincent Taufflieb

First up was Christelle Romac demonstrating EIM 4.0

Here’s the video of the demo (sorry, no soundtrack):

Then Florian Hamon did an end-to-end demonstration of BI 4.0

Here’s a video of the demonstration (sorry, no soundtrack):

Then I talked about HANA (In-memory analytics), StreamWork (collaborative decision making), and Mobile BI

Here’s a copy of my slides, in Adobe PDF and PowerPoint format

Finally, Chahab Nastar of SAP Research showed some of the exciting new software.

First,text analytics (available now as part of EIM 4.0):

And then some prototypes that extend the technology, using it to let users ask questions, make it available on a mobile phone, with voice-to-text, etc:

He finished off with a short video of the new Dashi prototype that uses HTML5 to let people add and edit charts using simple gestures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K07YlU9dPY

The event ended with a cocktail and performance by artist Roberto d’Olbia

Here’s a selection of photos from the event, on Flickr

Article from Silicon.fr: SAP lance B0 4.0 en fanfare

The New York stop of the SAP “Run Better Tour” hosted the launch of SAP BusinessObjects BI and EIM 4.0 this week. Click here to view a recording of the event: Keynote with Steve Lucas, Dave Weisbeck and Geoffrey Moore.

Industry reactions were extremely positive – here’s a selection of quotes and links to articles (many thanks to Nic Smith for this list)

Community Reactions

“There’s not much that hasn’t been unified, upgraded or left unchanged in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0”

-       Doug Henschen, InformationWeek

“Overall, version 4 is a great step forward… The good news is that our benchmark research confirms that many of the new technologies SAP is bringing to market are just what users are asking for”

-       Mark Smith, Ventana Research

“In some areas, SAP is delivering improvements customers have long been asking for, clearing up inconsistencies and overlaps lingering from the BusinessObjects acquisition in 2007. In other respects, SAP is delivering solid, forward-looking enhancements that set customers up for an era that demands real-time access to and insight into ever-larger data stores.”

-       Doug Henschen, InformationWeek

“SAP is betting big on HANA, rolling out a series of specialized applications that will sit on top of the software, which puts data into RAM for faster performance compared to reading off disks. For now, SAP is not positioning HANA as something that could replace databases such as Oracle’s, which underpins many SAP installations, but that could change as the product matures.”

-       Chris Kanaracus, IDG News

“SAP’s newest software not only lets the user monitor Tweets in real-time, but also extract more granular information about the Tweets and their creators, presumably for later data-mining. In addition to this merging of business intelligence with social-media streams, the software’s other new features include real-time in-memory computing, which can rapidly crunch high volumes of data for business insights.”

-       Nicholas Kolakowski, eWEEK

“The technical challenges in an SAP BusinessObjects project have been a chief concern for SAP BW customers…But in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0, the next-generation BI platform SAP’s been crafting for three years and will release this week, BW customers should see significant improvements in ease of integration, scalability and performance.”

-       Courtney Bjorlin, ASUGNews

“SAP’s overall focus is to help companies “run smarter” and obviously the work on BI 4.0 has to be part of this overall environment – how do analytics help companies run more effectively, more consistently, more efficiently.”

-       James Taylor, Smart Data Collective

“Being able to engage people, and react instantly to a problem or opportunity, is what we’re here to talk about. You want information now, immediately, as it happens.”

-       Steve Lucas, SAP, in eWeek

“There’s a lot of pent-up demand,” said Dave Weisbeck, senior vice president for SAP’s solution management, business intelligence and enterprise-information management. The software can run on smart phones and tablet computers, opening it to new users who want to analyze data from their own operations or from social media comments on the Web, he said.

-       Dave Weisbeck, SAP, in Bloomberg BusinessWeek

“In-memory plus mobility is the killer app from [SAP].”

-       Steve Lucas, SAP, in IDG News

“I think [CEP] is going to be a game changer for many industries. Since discussions began with SAP, users have contributed an ‘explosion of ideas for how we could use this environment.”

-       Alan Capes, Canadian National Railways in IDG News

“CN has been working on a real-time BI project for some time, and in the course of doing so evaluated a number of CEP engines, Capes said. Last year, the company met with SAP officials, who came back eight weeks later with a proof-of-concept that ‘blew our socks off.’”

-       Alan Capes, Canadian National Railways in IDG News

Film distributor Lionsgate is dealing with “profound change” in the movie industry thanks to the advent of digital video and newer companies such as Netflix, said Leo Collins , executive vice president and CIO, during a panel discussion. “We’re working to understand what that means. [Business Objects 4.0] is a big part of that picture.”

-       Leo Collins, Lionsgate, in IDG News

“When SAP used to say, ‘We have the best integration to SAP,’ my opinion was: No you don’t. You have what everyone else has. Now, they can correctly claim that.”

-       Cindi Howson, BI Scorecard, in ASUGNews

“The latest BI and EIM solutions from SAP are designed to help tackle big data, integrating structured and unstructured data and even information from social networks. New capabilities for event insight and information stewardship bring the benefits of data trustworthiness and process timeliness to customers.”

-       Carl Olofson, IDC, in Information Management

“In addition, Business Objects 4.0 delivers a more common look and feel across the modules, as well as better integration between them”

-       Boris Evelson, Forrester, in IDG News

Articles

• SAP announces Blockbuster BusinessObjects Upgrade, Doug Henschen, InformationWeek
• CN Railway Helps SAP’s Launch of Business Objects 4.0, Kathleen Lau, IT World Canada
• SAP bets on in-memory, mobility in new BI release, Chris Kanaracus, PC World
• Random Thoughts from BI Lunch, David Rathbun, Dave’s Adventures in Business Intelligence Blog
• SAP Updates Leverage Mobility, Twitter, Tablets, BI, Nicholas Kolakowski, eWEEK
• SAP updates BusinessObjects with high-speed analytics, Dan Worth, V3.co.uk
• Years in the Making, SAP Spotlights BusinessObjects Overhaul, Justin Kern, Information Management
• SAP delivers BusinessObjects 4.0 update, David Meyer, ZDNet UK
• SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 hits the streets, Mark Brunelli, SearchBusinessAnalytics.com
• SAP Marries Mobile Computing to Real-time Analytics, Michael Vizard, IT Business Edge
• SAP BusinessObjects unveils analytics software for specific industries, Mark Brunelli, SearchBusinessAnalytics.com
• SAP Enters Complex-event Processing Market, Chris Kanaracus, IDG News
• An Update – SAP BI and EIM 4.0, James Taylor, Smart Data Collective
• SAP Run Better Tour Keynote, James Taylor, JT on EDM Blog
• SAP BusinessObjects, BW Integration to Get Easier in BI 4.0, Courtney Bjorlin, ASUG News
• SAP Eyes Wider Market With Real-Time Business Analytics Software, Ragnhild Kjetland and Aaron Ricadela, Bloomberg BusinessWeek
• Blogger Briefing, David Rathbun, Dave’s Adventure in Business Intelligence Blog
• Four For Four, David Rathbun, Dave’s Adventure in Business Intelligence Blog
• SaaS BI / BI On Demand… State of Affairs – Part 1, Prashanth Rai, CIO-Reinvented Blog
• Live, From New York, It’s…, David Rathbun, Dave’s Adventure in Business Intelligence Blog

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 application’s page on iTunes that gives an overview of the application:

Stuck in traffic? An event at Suncorp Stadium clogging up William Jolly Bridge? An accident on Gympie Road? Wish you simply took the other way? BNE Traffic is here to help — life is too short to be stuck in traffic!

BNE Traffic is a research prototype created by SAP Research, the global technology research unit of SAP AG, acting as your personal crystal ball for the streets of Brisbane. Before heading out, make an informed choice of routes by viewing what others have already encountered — we leverage the information of hundreds of users. The application shows a map of the greater Brisbane area and displays information about current traffic conditions. Pins on the map allow you to easily recognize where obstacles have been identified. Based on the information associated with these pins, you can adjust your route accordingly and avoid traffic jams. With the help of BNE Traffic, you do not have to be late for that movie, important meeting, or dinner date again.

Features

• Displays traffic incidents around greater Brisbane graphically
• Leverages information from hundreds of users through the Twitter platform (#bnetraffic)
• Works in read-only mode and therefore does not transmit any of your private information
• Uses cutting-edge text analytics technology

And here’s a video that gives an overview of the application and the technology used: it extracts tweets tagged with “#bnetraffic”, then uses the SAP BusinessObjects Text Analysis technology to extract the geolocation information and place the information on the appropriate place in a Google map. And the whole thing is hosted using Amazon’s cloud technology. Interestingly, the researchers claim that the application took only three days to put together (but getting authorizations to put in on the iTunes store took another three months).

[Update] Check out the blog post on SDN, An Unconvential Use of SAP Text Analysis by Marek Kowalkiewicz of SAP Research describing the project.

Surfer photo by “d.i.”

Not What You Might Think

No, SAP’s first official iPhone application is NOT the BusinessObjects Explorer iPhone Application that Marge Breya demonstrated during the keynote of SAP TechEd Vienna, and which Alexis Naibo of the SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center used to win the Demo Jam contest.

That application isn’t quite yet available on iTunes (but will be shortly). For more information about this forthcoming application, check out the demonstration video on Vimeo and Craig Cmehil interviewing Alexis in Vienna.

Stuck in Brisbane traffic? This App’s for You

The first official SAP iPhone application is already available on iTunes. So why haven’t you heard of it? Well, it’s unfortunately not much use to you unless you live 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 application’s page on iTunes that gives an overview of the application:

Stuck in traffic? An event at Suncorp Stadium clogging up William Jolly Bridge? An accident on Gympie Road? Wish you simply took the other way? BNE Traffic is here to help — life is too short to be stuck in traffic!

BNE Traffic is a research prototype created by SAP Research, the global technology research unit of SAP AG, acting as your personal crystal ball for the streets of Brisbane. Before heading out, make an informed choice of routes by viewing what others have already encountered — we leverage the information of hundreds of users. The application shows a map of the greater Brisbane area and displays information about current traffic conditions. Pins on the map allow you to easily recognize where obstacles have been identified. Based on the information associated with these pins, you can adjust your route accordingly and avoid traffic jams. With the help of BNE Traffic, you do not have to be late for that movie, important meeting, or dinner date again.

Features

• Displays traffic incidents around greater Brisbane graphically
• Leverages information from hundreds of users through the Twitter platform (#bnetraffic)
• Works in read-only mode and therefore does not transmit any of your private information
• Uses cutting-edge text analytics technology

And here’s a video that gives an overview of the application and the technology used: it extracts tweets tagged with “#bnetraffic”, then uses the SAP BusinessObjects Text Analysis technology to extract the geolocation information and place the information on the appropriate place in a Google map. And the whole thing is hosted using Amazon’s cloud technology. Interestingly, the researchers claim that the application took only three days to put together (but getting authorizations to put in on the iTunes store took another three months).

[Update] Check out the blog post on SDN, An Unconvential Use of SAP Text Analysis by Marek Kowalkiewicz of SAP Research describing the project.

And if you ARE in Brisbane, note that BNE Traffic isn’t the only SAP technology that’s helping you speed towards your favorite surfing spot. IBM and SAP worked together to provide a “motorway that thinks” for the Queensland Government:

…Queensland Motorways identified the toll plazas on the Gateway and Logan motorways as a major pinch point. The need to have vehicles either slow as they passed through the toll plazas using electronic tolling or to stop and pay with cash at a toll booth was significantly slowing the speed of traffic.

“Free-flow tolling was seen as beneficial for two reasons,” explains Phil Mumford. “First, if we could automate the tolling process and eliminate the need for drivers to stop, it would immediately increase the average speed of traffic flow, improve safety and the traveling experience of motorists. Secondly, the solution would allow us to digitally capture and analyze information about the vehicles that use our roads, which would help us make dramatic improvements to traffic management in the future.”

The roadside solution replaces the traditional toll booths with a Thales/Vitronic road-side gantry that utilizes video cameras and dedicated short-range communication technologies to capture information on passing vehicles. Vehicles are identified either by an in-vehicle tag or by analyzing footage of their number plates using two optical character recognition (OCR) engines, one at the roadside and a Dacolian engine at the central system.

The vehicle data is then matched to the appropriate customer account, and an IBM-developed rating engine assesses how much money is owed. The billing information is passed to back-end SAP ERP Financials and SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, which either deduct the total from a prepaid customer account, or generate an invoice. Business reporting is handled by SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, and integration by SAP NetWeaver Process Integration.

“The whole process is automated and instantaneous, and there is no need for drivers to stop to pay their toll,” explains Phil Mumford. “Moreover, except in certain cases where a vehicle cannot be identified by OCR, there is no need for manual intervention by our staff. This not only improves traffic flow – it also cuts down the cost per transaction, which will help us offer better value to our customers.”

More importantly, the introduction of the SAP CRM application is leading to a fundamental change in the way Queensland Motorways interacts with its customers. Now it can see what vehicles are using the roads and how often and at what times they use the roads. In the future, Queensland Motorways will be able to tailor its services to individual drivers – with a profound effect on both customer experience and traffic management.

“With SAP CRM, we have achieved a better understanding of who our customers are,” says Phil Mumford. “In the future we’ll be able to offer customers useful information about the transport network. For example, a customer making regular trips to the airport on a Monday morning may want to receive congestion reports direct to their phones. The whole experience has the potential to be much more personalized.

“The idea is to have ‘a motorway that thinks’ – a more intelligent solution that will give our customers a better range of options for their journeys.”

Surfer photo by “d.i.”

• Perhaps surprisingly, over 30% were already using text analytics
• The highest usages were for “voice of customer” and “competitive intelligence”

Also of interest was the ranking of BI technologies in order of importance — Query and Reporting 1st, OLAP Data Cubes last.

I believe there’s an opportunity there, between Business Objects Web Intelligence and Crystal Reports products, and SAP’s NetWeaver BI data warehousing environment…

Here’s my take:

• The integration process has been excellent — the new products are out just four months after the acquisition was announced.
• The products are integrated, not just rebadged. For example, existing WebIntelligence and Crystal Reports users will be able to access text analytics directly through their familiar interfaces.
• I’m biased, of course, but It’s very cool technology:
  • Key concepts recognized “out of the box”, such as dates, people, addresses, URLs, companies, etc.
  • Intelligent categorization based on taxonomies (a complaint is a complaint, even if it doesn’t use the word)
  • Automatic document summaries that change automatically according to the user’s interests
  • Automatic alerts if a new document matches an existing search, or whenever a document changes
  • etc…
• Here’s a quick overview of the new technology, and click on the image below to get a demo.

Now the interesting question: Business Objects is making it as easy as possible for its customers to implement and use the new technology options — are they ready?

At the European Insight User Conference, Business Objects just announced the purchase of Inxight, a text analytics company. (Welcome!)

Inxight Founder Ian Hersey and Marge Breya, CMO of Business Objects, announcing the intention to purchase, on stage at the European Insight User Conference in Berlin.

The worlds of structured and unstructured analysis are (finally) coming together in tangible ways.

Inxight has powerful text analysis algorithms (in more than 30 different languages and >220 file formats), and provides Business Objects with a wealth of new ways to view and analyze information. Here’s a few quick graphical links to get to the heart of what Inxight can do.

Federated search

Integrated search across internal documents and data, the internet, and subscription content, with monitoring and personalized alerts.

Search extender for Google

Combine information from Google and other search sources, add context and alerts to “raw” Google searches.

Thing finder

Automatically identifies and extracts key entities or other “things” from any text data source, in multiple languages, with no setup or manual creation of rules required.

Star trees

interactive, visual representation of hierarchical or network relationships.

Some examples on the web:

• Nasa
• Understanding USA
• National Science Digital Library
• LexisNexis

TimeWall

Shows information along a 3D interactive timeline.

TableLens

Visual representation and analysis of records-oriented data

Summarizer

Quick, smart generation of summaries from text content, automatically including hyperlinks to things like key concepts, thesauruses, similar content, relevant web sites, etc.

There are going to be lots of new opportunities opening up as structured and unstructured comes together, and lots of blog postings. As always, I’m interested in your thoughts on how these worlds relate… How do you see the future?