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June 27, 2007
Searching for NeoView in Vegas
"An Englishman in New York" as Sting once sang. That's how out of context I [as a business intelligence software analyst] probably felt at HP's storage-centric Technology Solutions Group Forum conference this week. OK, maybe not quite – I'm Indian and the location was Las Vegas. But for someone primarily looking for business intelligence software gems, the trappings at HP were sufficiently "alien". In case you're wondering what I was doing there – one word will suffice. NeoView. I'd heard from various esteemed analyst writings that HP was gong to be the next bee's knees in BI and data warehousing soon following the recent launch of its quasi-data warehousing appliance, NeoView. As it turned out I had a better chance of finding Lord Lucan [the English peer that's been AWOL since 1974] jotting down notes on performance considerations for designing LT04 backup systems than finding anyone on the floor willing to speak to about BI or data warehousing for that matter. Then it occurred to me that I was perhaps at the wrong end of the conference. A couple of gigantic blocks up the famous Strip from the Mandalay Bay was the Venetian was the "Software Universe" event. A quick taxi ride and I was more at home – yet the search for NeoView continued. It's clear that HP is starting to load-up on software – again. I say again because when HP was just a humble shed in Palo Alto it was a software company that turned into a hardware company. But as it turned out most of HP's new software buzz was honed to its Mercury Interactive quality management and testing suite of products and its Advantage suite of desktop products. The company also timed its acquisition of enterprise security firm SPI Dynamics – two weeks after arch-rival IBM bought Watchfire. BTW: HP is clearly weary of IBM as its most dangerous competitor. Yet, to my recollection at least, no direct mention was made on Big Blue in any of its keynotes. It was enough for me to consider donning the IBM hat I had picked up at a previous conference! While there were no direct references or announcements around NeoView – after sort of announcing NeoView last autumn, HP perhaps jumped the gun and decided in May to launch a "hard" 2.0 version in May that hopefully it will talk about more widely. So I had some outstanding questions that were left unanswered by HP execs. So I’ll take a stab at answering them myself: • Is NeoView really an appliance? Technically yes. But HP is cautious of pushing NeoView into a niche that it believes it is way ahead of. Instead it likes to believe that NeoView supports a wider range of enterprise data warehousing, mixed query workload environments. That of course puts NeoView in direct competition with Netezza, Teradata, and IBM. Analysts would also (rightly) argue that BI is getting more operationally mission critical. Hence, NeoView's 24x7 operation and mixed user workload capabilities are touted as major differentiators. But isn't that what Teradata's active data warehousing strategy is all about too? • How well is HP likely to do with NeoView? It's still early days to tell. Much depends on HP's ability to sell software – something that remains to be proven. However HP is loading up on resources. It already has gained considerable BI and data warehousing expertise trough its acquisition of Knightsbridge. Plus it is actively recruiting a specialized sales force to sell NeoView. Of course Mark Hurd's influence in spinning a software angle to sales should also help. • What ace cards does HP hold? While Hp might be a late comer to the market, it does have the HP-brand clout that counts for a lot in today's conservative IT market. Netezza, while doing business fro several years, is only just about to IPO. NeoView's pricing also takes a pot-shot at Teradata's expensive system, but will struggle to match Netezza and others like Datallegro and Greenplum/Sun. So any price advantages that NeoView might hold are effectively cancelled out. • Why is HP entering the BI and data warehousing market, and why now? Research shows that BI is still one of the few growth sectors left in the enterprise software sector. And HP has shown that it is more than ready to load up on its software business to augment its core hardware revenue. The personal influence of CEO Mark Hurd also has a lot to do with HP's move into BI and data warehousing. Surely the timing of NeoView is more than just a coincidence, coming as it does a year after Hurd took over the reins. With the HP brand behind it NeoView is sure to stir things up in the market. But 2007 won't be the banner year for NeoView. HP will probably have to wait until it gets some marquee customers references on board before it starts to blow its NeoView trumpet in a big way. Funnily enough the company might not have to look far. HP itself is in the midst of a major IT transformation that will modernization of HP's infrastructure and hopefully reduce the percentage of revenue it spent on IT by half (4% to 2%) on an annual basis over a three year period. With over 5,000 legacy applications that's a massive undertaking by any stretch of the imagination. Part of that involves consolidating over 750-plus data marts scattered across HP's various divisions into a single, gigantic 750-plus terabyte enterprise data warehouse that will eventually support upwards of 50,000 users. The enterprise data warehouse is of course being built on NeoView with a dash of HP services. The first EDW located in Houston went live in April 2006 and comprises 256 processors, 128 servers and 182 terabytes of storage. A similar-spec EDW is expected to go online in a couple of weeks. And an even bigger 382 terabyte EDW located in Atlanta will mop up the data mart consolidation effort. HP expects to incrementally eliminate its data marts to zero by the middle of 2009. If HP gets its right then it already has what could be the "mother of all enterprise data warehouse case studies" – right in its own back yard. Its not just data warehousing technology that HP is gathering. It's also loading up on skills and personnel as well – on many levels. For the grunt work, the acquisition of Knightsbridge handed HP a ready-made team of field-hardened and highly skilled BI and data warehousing experts. It almost instantly gave HP some credibility in terms of BI and data warehousing worthiness. For those that prefer the luxury of stretch-limo length mahogany boardroom tables, HP certainly has an impressive double-act. What was most interesting at the conference was seeing a dual-act of HP CEO Mark Hurd (ex-CEO of data warehousing giant Teradata) and HP CIO Randy Mott (ex-CIO of Wal-Mart and one of Teradata's biggest customers) on the same stage working for the same company. Both men clearly have a shared vision of what data warehousing should be and where it should go. Then there's Vickie Farrell, now marketing manager of NeoView. Surely not the same Vickie Farrell you was a vice president of marketing at Teradata? Having met and interviewed Vickie when she was a marketing big-wig blowing Teradata's trumpet, its' now amusing for me to hear her talking about "HP plausibly going lower and wider and cheaper than Teradata." More on NeoView if and when I finally pin down an appropriate HP executive. Posted by madansheina in Business Intelligence | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) June 19, 2007How Best to Link BI and BPM? 
In eager anticipation of Wednesday's ebizQ "BI in Action" Virtual Conference, I wrote yesterday here about why BI needs BPM (and about why BPM needs BI at the "BPM in Action" blog). (Feel free to go and read or re-read either or both, after you register for Wednesday's event!) Today, in equally eager anticipation of a panel discussion to be featured at the Conference, I want to ruminate a bit on how best to achieve maximum business benefit by the combination of BI and BPM. The panel discussion is "The Role of BI in BPM and SOA," and is being moderated by my ebizQ colleague and blogmate, ebizQ VP of strategic services, and SOA maven extraordinaire Beth Gold-Bernstein. And of course, one of the most obvious and popular answers to the question "how best to combine/leverage/take advantage of BI and BPM?" is some variant on the "with an SOA" theme. However, despite all the wonderfully useful information promulgated about SOAs at ebizQ and elsewhere, there is no automatic connecting of the BI, BPM, and SOA dots, at least/especially not for most businesspeople. And in fact, how obvious do you want something called an "architecture" to be to users? When I'm in a building, I notice the architecture, but don't really care about how it was executed; I just want the building to remain standing, especially while I'm in it. So I'm going to take a slightly different view. I offer the observation that SOAs (and related technologies, such as enterprise service buses, or ESBs) are critically important to technological integration of BI and BPM "on the back end." However, users, especially business-focused users, no more want nor need to see most elements of an SOA than they want or need to see explicit elements of BI or BPM solutions or architectures. What they want and need to see are the usable results of these behind-the-scenes elements and efforts. So what's needed are dashboards and software-based services, including desktop widgets, that present to users information they can assimilate and act upon with minimal to no additional technical knowledge or help. These must be easily customized to meet the needs and expectations of multiple types of users, from senior executives to business and IT architects and strategists. They must be easily modified as needs and user types change. And they must be totally non-disruptive to business and IT operations. (That means desired or needed changes can be made without fork lifts or automatic weapons, and that all interfaces are driven by the same set of secure, up-to-date, and verified data.) Achievement of these goals requires a fair amount of heavy lifting in that aforementioned behind-the-scenes area. Whatever BI and BPM solutions are chosen must be connected via seamless, flexible interfaces, to one another and to the presentation methods and tools of choice. And those presentation methods and tools must be easily combined, mixed, and matched. Depending on environmental particulars, this could mean integration with one or more types of application, portal, service, and/or Web browser software and/or service. Fortunately, standards for such integrations, and tools supporting those standards – up to and including ESBs and SOAs – are beginning to improve, multiply, and take root effectively in many sizes and types of enterprises. And you can learn about many of these during the "BI in Action" Virtual Conference, and elsewhere across ebizQ. However, these solutions and standards are still evolving, as business needs and goals always are. This means that comprehensive and sufficiently fluid and flexible integration and presentation can still be challenging, even with an ESB and an SOA. So, what's really needed to integrate BPM and BI most effectively is a combination of carefully crafted, deployed, and enforced business processes, supported by the best available business intelligence. In other words, a holistic, proactive approach to what I and others sometimes refer to as business knowledge management (BKM). You might want to download and read a Research Note I wrote on BI, BPM, and BKM in preparation for the Virtual Conference, and keep some of this in mind during the panel discussion. And I'd be very interested in hearing about your own experiences with attempting to combine BI with BPM to better serve your business. But make sure to register for and attend Wednesday's event, before getting distracted writing to me… Posted by mdortch in BI • Business Intelligence | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) June 18, 2007BI: Upfront, Personal & For Everyone
In the true spirit of democracy, IT vendors have been harking on about "BI for the Masses" and "pervasive BI" in various mantras for years now. It clearly hasn't happened as yet. It's fair to say that BI is far from being pervasive in terms of enterprise deployment and use – research shows that less than a quarter of information workers in companies use or have access to BI tools, with most being used by financial analysts. There are several reasons why this is so: • Businesses have not yet identified a solid business value case for its deployment everywhere. Nevertheless it is a new "BI 2.0" nut that Microsoft, Business Objects and other BI vendors seem determined to crack. So what's new this time? Let's take a closer look at their recent "nutcracking" moves. Microsoft's New Day for BI Microsoft is essentially taking a "mass tools" approach to BI with its SQL Server 2005 (and its forthcoming Katmai 2008 release), SharePoint Server 2007 and Office 2007 products. But owning the knowledge worker desktop and now offering a complete "stack", from operating system, database, to BI front ends, certainly does make Microsoft a formidable force in BI that is changing the landscape for both competitors and users. Here are just a few of the feathers in Microsoft's BI cap right now: • Microsoft is starting to nicely flesh out its BI front-ends capabilities beyond Excel with its ProClarity acquisition and Office 2007 suite. Microsoft already owns the most popular BI tool in use today – Excel. Originally designed as a "disconnected" personal productivity tool, Microsoft has since tightened up integration with centralized BI stores to ensure data/query integrity and currency while still maintaining the familiar spreadsheet interface accessibility. The analysis and data mining tools built-into Excel 2007 have also been optimized, though only for OLAP data in SQL Server Analysis Services. What's missing is relational data query optimization; a point conveniently downplayed by Microsoft. And Office 2007, which shipped last November, now lets business users build BI reports within Excel from data stored on a networked sales database. SharePoint 2007 also has BI capabilities built-in. The recent acquisition of OfficeWriter technology from SoftArtisans further leverages the Office interface and shores up relational data access. OfficeWriter lets users design Reporting Services report from within Word and Excel. The technology will first surface in the next release of SQL Server (codenamed Katmai, which is due in 2008) and later in PerformancePoint Server 2007. • Lowering the entry-level price barrier for BI is a key trait of Microsoft's strategy for wide-scale adoption. For example, Microsoft has lowered the price of ProClarity's software from $800 to $200 per user under its ownership and plans to license PerformancePoint 2007 attractively like other Office products with a single server + single client access license (CAL) at $20,000 per server and $195 per CAL. The license will include scorecarding, analytics, planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and financial reporting. Despite its aggressive pricing Microsoft claims that revenues for its BI product line has increased, pointing to mass adoption. • Microsoft is also now poised to make its first foray into the performance management space with Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 due in the late summer. PerformancePoint is a server-based application for creating scorecards, budgets, forecasts, and reports. PerformancePoint Server differs radically from BI tools from SAP and Oracle by allowing users to author scorecards and reports in familiar and commonly used knowledge-work environments like Excel and Word. The technology gained from SoftArtisans will also shore up Office access to non-SQL Server relational data sources. However the depth of functionality that Microsoft's BI products offer still remains in question. But the price-point that they fall in still makes it a good deal for wide-scale deployment. Microsoft BI also currently lacks an ability to tap specific processes in its Dynamics ERP suite, something that Oracle and SAP both excel in. However Microsoft's CRM Analytics Foundation, which was announced in February this year and delivered via CodePlex project-hosting Website and the Microsoft CRM Sandbox, is a tentative step in the right direction. Business Objects But several recent product announcements by the company are squarely framed in a "pervasive" context: • BusinessObjects Mobile – BI software designed for "on-the-go" business users for viewing corporate reports from hand-held devices. Note: competitor Cognos also announced a similar product last September. Mobile access can be added as another service for BusinessObjects' core XI BI platform. Business Objects claims that a third of its customer base plan to give their BI users mobile access in the next two years. • Business Objects XI Release 2 Productivity Pack – The new Query as Web Service capability lets users for the first time publish BI queries as Web services, thereby making it easy to shoot off queries against a variety of applications without custom coding of IT involvement. • BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise – Builds on the core capabilities of Release 2 Productivity Pack to offer personalized BI dashboard visualizations within Microsoft Office applications like Word, PowerPoint and Excel or portals. • Business Objects On Demand BI Connectors – Launched last year, Business Objects' On Demand business is flourishing with over 40,000 subscribers signed up to date for its software-as-a-service version of its Crystal Reports Server. Business Objects is initially targeting Salesforce.com users; around 40% of its on demand customers also run Salesforce CRM. The new Data Connectors and Web Services Connectors now broadens support to both on demand and local data sources through on-premise and web-based applications. Business Objects also acquired NSite, a software-as-a-service specialist, last November to signal a deeper push into the on-demand BI market. Wrap Arguably, users necessarily don't want more BI tools. They want simplicity, which has been the traditional barrier to broader adoption thus far. Making BI look like Google search or another Blackberry or iPod gadget could be key. BI vendors recognize this and have launched initiatives to align their BI systems more closely to the enterprise search model. In this respect, Microsoft has a longer-way to go than traditional BI competitors. Pervasive BI is probably more than what most companies want right now. But BI is starting to branch out in different job roles and business processes where it hasn't been used before. Business Objects meanwhile also recognizes that the days of selling fat, unwieldy and expensive BI tools are over. But "thinning down" its existing tools or offering them as a software-as-a-service is not enough. Simplicity and ease of use, particularly at the interface level, also have to be factored into the product design if they are to be widely deployable. Posted by madansheina in Business Intelligence | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Why BI Needs BPM
This Wednesday is the ebizQ "BI in Action" Virtual Conference (for which you should register now, if you have not done so already). In the run-up to that event, I thought I would take on in this space and the "BPM in Action" blog some of what I consider the "big issues" regarding to and relating BPM and BI. Herewith, one of those – why BI needs BPM to deliver maximum business benefit and value. (My thoughts on why BPM needs BI, conveniently enough, can be found along with the musings of some of my learned ebizQ BI blogmates at the aforementioned "BPM in Action" blog.) There are several key elements in the "life cycle" management of BI, its supporting information streams, and what I like to think of as the larger and more valuable issue of business knowledge. These include, but need not be limited to, capture, definition, development, management, prioritization, refinement/revision, and retirement. Success with each of these elements requires effective, consistent processes – in other words, effective, consistent BPM. Effective, consistent processes are needed to identify, prioritize, and take full advantage of the intelligence in question. BI also needs BPM also needs BI to know what to do next. That is to say, beyond the elements listed above, those responsible for BI should always be looking forward a bit further than the nearest, hottest fire. BPM is similarly intended to help business decision-makers to address both immediate and longer-term situations and opportunities. If BI is to become and remain both responsive and proactive, it needs ways to become informed by and about any significant ripples or shifts on the BPM front. (For example, if monitoring indicates a sudden decrease or increase in the use of particular business processes, these may be linked to changes in or near the environment that can and/or should affect the information streams and/or processes supporting BI efforts.) Perhaps most crucial, though, is BI's need for BPM to provide meaningful context for BI. BI is both an end in and of itself, and a means to an end. The self-referential end for BI is to provide maximum knowledge about the business and events and developments that affect the business and its surrounding ecosystem. But what good is that, beyond providing some limited kind of validation and/or gratification, if it cannot be translated into action that furthers and serves the larger goals of the business? I'll take that one myself: no good at all. BPM, ideally, provides the context within which BI takes on "marching orders" that give it meaning and business value. At some enterprises, in fact, the BI-BPM relationship has become bi-directional. Input and feedback from BI efforts are considered part of information pool that drives BPM decisions, just as BPM efforts and their results increasingly inform BI decisions and processes. It is therefore incumbent upon everyone focused primarily on BI to expand that focus to include BPM. Ideally, that focus-expansion effort has already begun. Whether it has or not, this Wednesday's "BI in Action" Virtual Conference provides an ideal opportunity to step up your efforts to maximize the business value of every investment you make in BI and in BPM. Start by registering, and make sure to attend the keynote Webinar, "Business Intelligence: Driving Business Performance," as well as the follow-up presentation, "The Current State of the Business Intelligence Market." These will prepare you to intensify your BI and BPM efforts – and for the sure-to-be-lively panel discussion, "The Role of BI in BPM and SOA." I'll have more to say about that panel tomorrow, in my discussions of the other big issue relating BPM and BI – how best to link and integrate them. Meanwhile, though, make sure you register for and attend Wednesday's "BI in Action" Virtual Conference! Posted by mdortch in BI • Business Intelligence | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) A Hot Time at BI in Action This Week
This week heralds not only the first day of summer, but also a day of sizzling and scintillating discussion on the latest trends in business intelligence. Join us at the BI in Action virtual conference on Wednesday, June 20th, for compelling discussion on BI, BPM, SOA, and all the other ingredients of today's alphabet soup. (Remember what Michael Dortch says -- this alphabet soup is good for you!) The day kicks off with a keynote by noted BI expert Bill Gassman of Gartner, who will talk about the evolution of BI to corporate performance management. Bill will discuss how organizations leverage information for making decisions and improving performance, as well as the cornerstones of a business intelligence and performance management strategy. He will also look out at trends that will shape our BI operations over the coming five years. Bill's talk will be followed up by a second keynote by another noted BI guru, Boris Evelson of Forrester, who will talk about the current state of the BI market, as well as why BI has become so critical to organizations, particularly to the management of structured and unstructured data. Boris will also discuss the challenges very large databases (VLDB) pose to BI, as well as what the futures hold for BI. Finally, the presentations wind up with a panel discussion -- led by ebizQ's Beth Gold-Bernstein -- on how BI fits in with other corporate initiatives such as business process management and service-oriented architecture. Joining Beth in the discussion will be Guy Weismantel of Business Objects, Rob Risany of Savvion, and me! Expect a rousing discussion of how all these ingredients of the alphabet soup fit together, and will nourish our unceasing appetite for more insights and knowledge! Posted by joemckendrick in Business Intelligence | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) June 07, 2007BI, BPM, and SOA: Alphabet Soup that's GOOD for You!
As you may already be aware, there's a Webinar coming up at ebizQ on June 20, on the subject of "The Role of BI in BPM and SOA." (It's part of the upcoming "BI in Action" Virtual Conference.) Whether you were aware of it or not, you should definitely register and plan on attending. It will be a panel discussion hosted by my ebizQ colleague Beth Gold-Bernstein, which would be reason enough to attend. However, there are other good reasons as well. There should be little remaining doubt that business process management (BPM) and business intelligence (BI) are and will remain for some time principal applications, if not outright "killer apps," driving SOA adoption. Of course, a company can and should have good BPM and BI without an SOA. But for an SOA to deliver maximum immediate and sustained business benefit, a company must equip and support that SOA with strong, coherent, and integrated BPM – which almost by necessity and definition these days must include BI as well. As I see it, BI and BPM drive and support one another. BI is essential to make the best possible decisions about business process creation, orchestration, prioritization, refinement, and structure. Effective BPM, meanwhile, is essential to achieve and derive maximum business benefit from BI. Together, they form the foundation for what I've referred to repeatedly in my "BPM in Action" blog as human-centric business knowledge management (BKM). Now, for BI, BKM, and BPM to be of any real business value, they must pervade the entire enterprise – every element of the business and IT architectures and infrastructures. They must also be invisible to users doing their primary jobs. Which means the sensible place to park the features and resources that enable BI, BKM, and BPM is within an SOA, where an SOA exists. (Where an SOA does not exist, I think the most sensible place is within the applications and services those users use to do those primary jobs, but that's not the subject of this outing. It is the subject of previous rants in this space, however, in case you have way too much free time…) You can read all about BI, BPM, and SOA justifications, obstacles, and strategies right here at ebizQ, and about BKM, BI, and related issues, among other subjects, in the RFG section of the ebizQ Analyst Corner. But make no mistake – at many enterprises, including quite possibly yours or your client's or clients', BI, BKM, and BPM are going to be critical drivers and justifications for SOA efforts, today and for the foreseeable future. I expect the Webinar on June 20 will echo and delve deeply into these subjects, and urge you to register and participate. Meanwhile, you can expect to read more about how all of this stuff comes together – or not – here (as well as at my BPM blog)…especially if you care to contribute any of your own experiences, opinions, and thoughts… Posted by mdortch in BI • Business Intelligence | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) |
