A New Wave of Old School BI Outfits Are Agile, Maybe Juicy

September 27, 2015

The mid tier outfit Forrester has released another report about enterprise business intelligence platforms” for the third quarter of 2015. These reports cost about $2,500, so you know the information is red hot, spot in, and objective. Always objective. in the write up “The Forrester Wave: Agile Business Intelligence Platforms 2015”, the report is described as “juicy.” Imagine. Juicy applied to IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. Let me refresh your memory of juicy’s official definition:

1: having much juice : succulent

2: rewarding or profitable especially financially : fat <juicy contract> <a juicy dramatic role>

3a : rich in interest : colorful <juicy details>

b : sensational, racy <a juicy scandal>

c : full of vitality : lusty

I am not sure mid tier consulting firms’ reports are “rewarding or profitable especially financially” for the reader. At a couple of thousand per authorized copy of the report, the mid tier firms are likely to be drenched in juiciness. Will this report be lusty, sensational, colorful, and succulent? Nah. This is marketing pulp, gentle reader.

Which are the companies which make the cut? According to this write up, there are a baker’s dozen of agile, BI vendors:

Birst
GoodData
IBM
Information Builders
Microsoft
MicroStrategy
Oracle
Panorama Software
Qlik
SAP
SAS
Tableau Software
TIBCO Software.

Scanning this list, I wonder how “agile” IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and SAS really are. I know that TIBCO acquired some nifty technology for its analytics functions, and that the founders of Spotfire have moved on to even more interesting analytics at their new company, funded in part by Google and In-Q-Tel. The other firms are ones which have run around the BI bases for years and may have a touch of arthritis; for instance, Information Builders which kicked off its career 1975. Qlik was founded in 1993. MicroStrategy flipped on its lights in 1989 and spawned at least one outfit (Clarabridge) which strikes me as slightly more agile than the mother ship. Tableau, now a publicly traded outfit, hung out its shingle in 2003.

GoodData may be the most spry among this group, not because it was founded in 2007, but because the firm landed another $25 million in funding in 2014.

According to the blurb about the report, each of these companies are agile because of several special features each of these vendors offer their customers. These characteristics are:

First, these 13 vendors’ products allow their business users to be self sufficient. I am not sure I agree, that SAS stuff requires a person to be SAS-sy, which means able to navigate the companies’ programming methods with some skill. IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle provide many different ways to skin the business intelligence cat. In my opinion, these companies’ business intelligence technology require that the business user have the equivalent of a fighter jet maintenance crew to assist them on the flights into analysis and visualization.

Second, each company generates knock out visualizations. My thought is that for zippy visualizations, more specialized tools are required. The companies highlighted in this report can deliver slides and graphs which are niftier than those in Excel, but far short of the Hollywood style outputs which come from Palantir and Recorded Future, among other firms not included in the agile list.

Third, each of the 13 companies offers its licensees and customers options and additional features. This is definitely a must have function. Most of the firms in the list of agile BI companies sells services. Some have partners, lots of partners. The business model may be less to be agile and more to sell billable work, but that’s okay. I am not sure inking a six figure services contract delivers agility.

I assume the complete $2,500 report will become available from the companies listed in the report. For now, think agility. Think IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, along with the 10 other companies.

Remember, these are 13 juicy and agile outfits. Remarkable. Juicy.

Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2015

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business intelligence, Consulting, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.