Panorama Business Intelligence

I was just listening on the latest interview of SAP and Business Objects executives speaking about the value of these 2 companies coming together for SAP and Business Objects customers.

You can listen to the interview here: http://www.sap.com/community/events/2008_02_Bobj/index.epx

Putting myself in the shoes of an SAP customer here is what I took away from it:

 

• If you are an SAP customer you should know that BOBJ is not a simple, light footprint addition to your existing investment, it is actually a major deal: Marge Breya, the EVP for BI at BOBJ, actually states towards the end of the interview that BOBJ is “ a real platform” with data and management and the whole 9 yards that sits on top of the SAP platform.

• The key value for SAP customers, as mentioned in the interview, is the ability to go beyond and outside of the SAP NetWeaver platform in a good way.

• SAP customers that have a NetWeaver strategy will probably find that in order to get a new and easy reporting and analytics tool to replace BEX that will require them to make an investment that is probably equal to what they already went through when deployed NetWeaver.

 

Which SAP should chose BOBJ in my mind according to this interview:

• Customers that have most of their data outside of NetWeaver and are looking for a way to bring it all together

• Customers that stick to the SAP strategy no matter how effective it is

• Customers that don’t mind having an additional platform on top of NetWeaver to get a great usable BI solution.

 

Who should look for a 3^rd party that does not have a platform:

• Heavily invested in BW / NetWeaver

• Not interested in adding a platform on top of a platform

• Looking for a more intuitive UI on BW but not wanting to give up the investment in BW

• Customers looking to give their users more self service capabilities on top of the existing BW infrastructure.

 

I really encourage every SAP customer to watch the interview here:

http://www.sap.com/community/events/2008_02_Bobj/index.epx

Market Snapshot Says Global BI Leader is Innovative, Helps Customers Maximize BI Investment

Panorama Software, a global leader in Proactive Business Intelligence solutions, today announced that the company has been favorably categorized in the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant as a compelling BI solution for customers who are looking for a front-end solution that runs on SAP NetWeaver, Microsoft SQL Server and Essbase.

“In a year of dramatic consolidations in the BI industry, we are pleased with the Gartner results,” said Oudi Antebi, VP Marketing and Strategy, Panorama Software. “Panorama shows impressive continued momentum, and will remain aggressive in touting our strengths to new markets and increasing innovation in support of a variety of platforms.”

Gartner cited Panorama strengths as including the company’s status as one of the few pure-play BI platform vendors with the ability to serve as a front-end for SAP NetWeaver BI without building an intermediate layer of metadata or moving data out of SAP. This allows customers relying heavily on NetWeaver to leverage 100% of their investment in the SAP platform. Gartner also cited Panorama’s unique ability to deliver a consistent front end that runs natively and simultaneously on both SAP NetWeaver BI and Microsoft Analysis Services and, eventually, Oracle Hyperion Essbase as “compelling,” according to analysts.

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 I’ve been contacted by many of you directly asking me if I quit blogging …. Well, In the last couple of months I did go quiet on the blogging side but not because I don’t want to do that any longer but rather because I was truly and totally engaged on working and planning  the next big set of innovations from Panorama.
I know a teaser like this is something that deserves more clarity and I promise all our loyal readers that I will leverage this blog to share more in the next 4 weeks ahead of any other media.
We are all very excited about what’s coming and weather you are using the Microsoft BI stack, SAP, BOBJ or Cognos I think you will truly find some of this truly mind blowing…..
 

We are now busy with patents and some alpha code so all of you out there looking for something new in BI…. Stay tuned as some interesting news are coming from this way.

When examining the evolution of the BI industry, it is shockingly paradoxical.  With a vision of helping organizations gain more actionable insight, BI companies have developed a myriad of tools focused on slicing and dicing data and building reports.  But those tools have only benefited 20% of the users who actually leverage BI for business results.

In developing solutions, most BI providers have overlooked the needs of the one group of stakeholders that can actually benefit the most from the potential of information insight.  And that’s the Information Worker.  Existing solutions are complex.  So much so that the Information Worker is forced to work around that complexity and fit the solutions to his or her needs.

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