EasyAsk: Business Intelligence for End Users
May 7, 2008
Progress Software purchased EasyAsk in May 2005. Prior to the change in ownership, EasyAsk offered natural language search to a range of government and commercial clients. After the buy out, Progress narrowed the focus of EasyAsk, as I understand the transition, from a broad search vendor to eCommerce.
The initial positioning, according to information in my files, was:
The Progress EasyAsk Division provides natural language ad-hoc query solutions that empower non-technical users to quickly find and retrieve critical business information from multiple enterprise data sources. In addition, EasyAsk provides an integrated search, navigation and merchandising platform that optimizes the shopping experience on many of the world’s most successful eCommerce sites.
The value add that EasyAsk offered customers was a higher conversion rate than the conversion rate achieved by competitive software. In 2006, some of the company’s licensees–for example, Redcats USA and Lillian Vernon–reported conversion rates 15 percent or higher than the rates from competitor’s software. You can try out the EasyAsk system yourself by navigating to Lillian Vernon or Lands’ End. EasyAsk’s commercial customers don’t make their system accessible to outsiders. If you get a chance to access Ceridian’s Intranet , you can check out EasyAsk in a behind-the-firewall setting because EasyAsk is now pushing into the business intelligence market.
Now EasyAsk is expanding its scope and asserting that its system is a front end for the data mart or data warehouse. EasyAsk calls its approach “operational business intelligence”. EasyAsk describes its system as being “closer to the ground”; that is, it’s more accessible than traditional BI systems. Users require little or no training to create a custom report. Interaction is via a traditional search box or a point-and-click, assisted navigation interface. If a data warehouse is already built, EasyAsk can deploy its system in a matter of days.
In an interview on the Business Intelligence Network, EasyAsk’s Dr. Larry Harris, vice president and general manager of the EasyAsk division of Progress Software, said:
The inherent complexity of traditional BI tools prevents organizations from deploying these solutions company wide, and this inhibits individuals who might otherwise be able to act on the insight these tools provide from making better business decisions. EasyAsk for Operational BI provides employees at all levels of the organization with the ability to perform ad hoc business analysis as well as search for existing reports through the familiar search box interface, empowering them to make better business decisions more quickly.
A number of vendors are addressing the knowledge barrier that prevents industrial-strength business intelligence systems from broader use in an organization. If you know how to code and have a degree in statistics, the complexities of building queries and manipulating data cubes are trivial. For the average MBA, building a chopper from a stack of parts would be less difficult.
This graphic shows typical outputs from EasyAsk in response to a user’s natural language query.The user types a query; for example, “Crosstab sales by customer’s state and category” or “What account in the Bay area had the most orders in Q4, 2007?”
That’s the hurdle BI or business intelligence must leap over without tripping. EasyAsk’s trampoline is its NLP or natural language processing capability. The idea is that the user can type a “natural” question. The EasyAsk system “understands” the user’s query, converts it to a form understandable by the system, retrieves the needed information, and displays an answer.
To make this work, EasyAsk’s system processes information in a data warehouse or a data mart. Ideally, the licensee will have a well-designed data warehouse, a documented data model or models, and a data dictionary. If thjere are present, EasyAsk has to perform these tasks. The cost of these important steps can vary from client to client. In my experience, weeks or months of effort may be needed if the licensee has a data management dream, not an operational data warehouse.
The EasyAsk product is fully integrated with all of Progress’ leading-edge application infrastructure products. Not surprisingly, Progress and its EasyAsk division will suggest that the licensee use other Progress technology to derive full value from the EasyAsk solution.
The cost of these “smart” systems may be worth it for some organizations. If use of business intelligence is lagging, the fix may be as simple as training more staff on the system. If staff aren’t available or can’t be hired due to a headcount freeze, then investing in an EasyAsk solution might be the easiest, most economical path forward.
Vendors are rushing to address the BI opportunity. Not surprisingly, it can be difficult to figure out who has a solid product and who offers vaporware. The appeal of allowing an authorized user to create a BI report without having to involve a programmer is appealing. You will have to decide how much of the solution is a search and interface issue and how much is a data management issue. EasyAsk is worth a look.
Stephen Arnold, May 8, 2008
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