Business Intelligence Goes Mainstream

The ‘new new thing’ that is growing at a rapid pace is Business Intelligence (BI). It’s white hot and all of the big boys in enterprise software are racing each other to get there. IBM bought Applix, Cognos and SPSS and is incorporating these technologies (specifically the Cognos engine) into its’ other software brands. SAP bought Business Objects and is doing the same. Oracle bought Hyperion. SAS Institute built its business around it and Microsoft is big into BI. And HP is doing a dance with Informatica, as seen in their recent partner press release.

According to Wikipedia, Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies (and people and processes) used to help a business acquire a better understanding of its commercial context. BI really started in the realm of data warehousing and data marts, but is moving rapidly into any data store that can provide critical information to your business. We have already seen this upfront and personal, with IBM’s new Rational Insight product, garnered from the Cognos purchase, already making its way into products like ClearCase, Rational Quality Manager and MS Project, along with XML data sources.

So why now? What is driving this? That’s easy. Businesses are always looking for real-time information that can consolidate metrics and provide analytical data that make it easier for them to determine the direction they take, and thus, provide a competitive advantage. And in the past, most software vendors were pretty poor at performing this task. Ask anyone using enterprise tools what they think of the reporting and analytics and they will roll their eyes, curse and then tell you about the cool stuff they have done in Excel. Well, that’s all about to change. BI is rolling out to an enterprise tool near you and your competition is either getting ready to utilize this information or already is using it to gain a competitive advantage. So either get on the wagon or get run over by it. Either way – it’s (main) streaming down the road….