Cognos 10 is here too

BI and DV vendors do not want me to relax and keep releasing new stuff too often. I feel guilty now and I will (3+ months after it was released) comment on Spotfire 3.2 release soon. But today I have to comment on Cognos 10 Release (which will be available Oct. 30; everybody now does pre-announcement: 2 weeks ago Qlikview 10, yesterday BO4, today Cognos 10). I quote: "IBM acquired Cognos in early 2008 during a five year buying spree that saw it swallow over 24 analytics companies in five years for a total bill of US$14 billion". Rob Ashe, general manager for BI at IBM, said: "“Analytics is a key part of our 2015 roadmap. Last year, analytics contributed $9 billion to our revenues, and we expect to see that grow to $16 billion in 2015.”

The Cognos 10 embeds SSPS and Lotus Connections, supports SaaS, active/interactive reports via email (no need to install anything), mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads and BlackBerrys (as well as Symbian phones, and Windows Mobile devices), real-time updates, has “modern” Web 2.0 user interface. Cognos TM1 (from Applix) is a multidimensional, 64-bit, in-memory OLAP engine which provides fast performance for analyzing complex and sophisticated models, large data sets and even streamed data.

Personally I think Cognos 10 compares favorably against BO4, SAS 9.2, OBIEE 11g , but all 4 have at least 2 common problems: they are all engaged too much with Java and they are far (of Qlikview, Spotfire, Omniscope, Tableau etc.) behind in Data Visualization...

n006: http://wp.me/pCJUg-4Z

SAP pre-announced BO4

"Business Objects 4.0 will be available this  (2010) year" - SAP teases own customers at ASUG. It became a habit for SAP - to say something about a product they did not release yet. For example they did pre-announcement of HANA (in-memory analytics appliance) in May 2010, see http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/sap-build-new-in-memory-database-appliances-392 and now they are saying that HANA will be released in November 2010: http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/saps-in-memory-analytics-boxes-set-november-release-117 . It is very funny to see how 3 (SAP, IBM, Oracle) or 4 (if  you include the mindshare leader SAS) BI behemoths trying to compete (using money instead of creativity) with DV leaders like Qlikview and Spotfire who has in-memory columnar DB for years. E.g. IBM recently bought Netezza, SSPS and Applix and trying to marry Applix with Cognos. Or Oracle (after buying Sun) releasing Exadata and Exalogic to compete with... IBM's Netezza and SAP's HANA. SAP actually owns now (after they recently bought Sybase) the best collection of BI and DV-related technologies, like best columnar DB Sybase IQ (ok, Vertica too, but Qlikview, PowerPivot and Spotfire have it in-memory).

Back to BO4: it will be 64-bit only, Desktop Intelligence will not be included in this release, BO4 will be more dependent on Java (SAP, IBM, Oracle and SAS -  all 4 making a strategic mistake by integrating their product with dying Java), BO4 will have "data federation", BO4 will be integrated with SAP Portfolio (e.g. NetWeaver), Bo4 has now multi-dimensional analytical ability,
SAP Explorer allows in-memory Analytics etc. It took SAP 4+ months from pre-anouncement to release of BO4 - I guess they learn from Microsoft (I am not sure how it helps).

Update as of 7/27/11: BI 4.0 still not released yet and SAP is planning to release it now in August 2011, basically 10 months later then it was pre-anounced! Among other updates: on 7/25/11 SAP released interesting video with Demo:



Update as of 8/31/11: It took SAP 11 months from pre-announcement of BO4 to officially release it, see http://blogs.sap.com/analytics/2011/08/31/update-on-sap-businessobjects-bi-4-0-general-availability/   SAP said today: "Based on efforts over the last several weeks, BI 4.0 is targeted to become generally available starting September 16, 2011." Also "For customers and partners currently using BI 4.0, new eLearning tutorials are now available on the SAP Community Network. Check out the latest tutorials and take advantage of the new capabilities BI 4.0 has to offer." It is very funny and very sad RELEASE process.

Enterprise Deployment of SAP BO may look like this:




n005: http://wp.me/pCJUg-4o

Tableau is growing 123% YoY

Tableau added 1500 new customers during last year (5500 total, also it is used by Oracle on OEM basis as Oracle Hyperion Visual Explorer), had $20M in sales in 2009, Q3 of 2010 showing 123% growth over the same period a year ago, claiming to be a fastest growing software company in BI market (faster than Qliktech), see http://www.tableausoftware.com/press_release/tableau-massive-growth-hiring-q3-2010

Tableau 6.0 will be released next month, they claiming it is 100 times faster than previous version (5.2) with in-memory columnar DB, 64-bit support and optional data compression. They are so confident (due increasing sales) so they put 40 job openings last week (they had 99 employees in 2009, 180 now and plan to have 200 by end of 2010). Tableau is raising (!) prices for their Tableau Desktop Professional from $1800 to $1999 in November 2010, while Personal will stay at $999. They aim directly at Qliktech saying (through their loyal customer) this: "Competitive BI software like QlikView from QlikTech is difficult to use without a consultant or IT manager by your side, a less than optimal allocation of our team's time and energy. Tableau is a powerful tool that’s easy to use, built to last, and continues to impress my customers."

In Tableau's new sales pitch they claiming (among other 60 new features):

• New super-fast data engine that can cross-tab 10 million rows in under 1 second


• The ability to blend data from multiple sources in just a click


• Create endless combination graphs such as bars with lines, circles with bars, etc.

n004: http://wp.me/pCJUg-3Z

Qlikview 10 released near 10/10/10

Qliktech released as planned the new version 10 of Qlikview last week, see http://www.qlikview.com/us/company/press-room/press-releases/2010/us/1012-qlikview-10-delivers-consumer-bi-software and delivered a lot of new functionality, see

http://apandre.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/ds-whats-new-in-qlikview-10-en.pdf

to its already impressive list, like in-memory columnar database, the leading set of visual controls (pie/10, bar/7, column/7, line/6, combo/6, area/4, radar/4, scatter/5, bubble/3, heat-map/block/5, gauge/7, pivot/12, table/12, funnel/2, mekko, sparkline, motion charts etc.) totaling more than 80 different charts (almost comparable with Excel 2010 diversity-wise). Qlikview enjoying the position of the DV Leader in Data Visualization market for last few years, thanks to above functionality and to its charts, functioning as visual filters with interactive drill-down functionality, with best productivity for developers, with easiest UI and with multitude of clients (desktop, IE plugin, Java, ajax, most smartphones). Also take a look on this: http://www.ventanaresearch.com/blog/commentblog.aspx?id=4006 and this: http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/2010/12/qlikviews-new-release-focuses-on.html

Qliktech recently had a successful IPO and secondary offering,  see http://www.google.com/finance?q=Qlik which made capitalization of the Qliktech approaching $2B. DV competition is far from over: recently Qlikview got very strong competition from Spotfire 3.2, PowerPivot and upcoming (this or next month) releases of Tableau 6 and Omniscope 2.6. And don't forget DV misleaders with a bunch of money, trying to catch-up: SAP, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Microstrategy, even Google and others trying very hard to be a DV contenders                                                                                (n002: http://apandre.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/qlikview10/)

Qliktech uses this Diagram to present its current set of Components and DataFlow between them:

[caption id="attachment_357" align="alignleft" width="510" caption="QV10 Components and DataFlow."][/caption]