Comments for The PivotLink Blog

Comment on SAP + Sybase = Here we go … again by Dyke Hensen

Dyke Hensen — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:41:16 +0000

Thanks Eric,

Your point isn’t lost on me. I recognize that the value of Sybase mobile technology is a valuable addition to SAP’s mobile technology. I guess I look at the world through a BI lens.

My concern is really around BI customers being aware that there are great alternatives on the market. There have been so many cases of BI customers buying the SAP demo. They were hoodwinked, and I think it reflects badly on the promise of BI.

I think the BI software industry needs to focus on the time to value and cost of creating relevant metrics that empower business users to get the most insight from internal and external information. To that end, I think we need to look at the bottlenecks in the current BI deployment process and attack those first. SAP is not doing that.

Mobile delivery is important and it will become more so in the future. That said, if we just stack mobile reports and graphics onto the backlog of other BI reports, have we really created something of value or just added another level of complexity for the customers we want to empower?

Here at PivotLink, we strive for robust, end-user self-service that complies with enterprise governance and security, which I feel delivers on the true promise of agile and pervasive BI.

Comment on SAP + Sybase = Here we go … again by Eric Synstelien

Eric Synstelien — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:55:32 +0000

You missed the point. The aquisition had almost nothing to do with BI or database. It is the focus on mobile that caused SAP to do this.

I do agree with your point about large software vendors. They tend to integrate ideas that come from others. Also SAP has shifted strategy in a few major areas to the detriment of customers.

Comment on It’s all about tracking metrics by Joe Knepper

Joe Knepper — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:43:44 +0000

Great response Ajay! I have used several “guiding principles” in my career and two of them closely parallel some of you comments. Those 2 guiding principles are: 1) start small and grow by chunking (don’t boil the ocean); and 2) never push a solution in search of a problem.

I think both of these GPs are reflected in your comment, “…first have a discussion with the executives on tracking metrics, how will they define the metrics and get the buy in first before implementing the SaaS BI solution. It is so refreshing to hear such conversations instead of “how will we implement technology”.”

I think the lessons we’ve learned from Agile Software Development apply equally to implementations as well as the working relationships we develop and sustain with our customers. It is an iterative process served well by Pivotlink.

Comment on What’s New for SaaS BI in 2010 by Michael Freed

Michael Freed — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:13:51 +0000

I like the Insight as a Service idea quite a bit and can see why companies would want to build custom insight applications. For example, they could provide apps to customers to optimize use of a product and show ROI. It sounds like you’d like to see general use apps as well (”pre-packaged analytics based on best industry practices”). Great idea, but I wonder: who is going to build these and how would they be motivated to share what they build? Something along the lines of the SFDC App Exchange maybe?

Comment on Selecting SaaS Business Intelligence: A Response to Forrester Analyst Boris Evelson by Dave Kasabian

Dave Kasabian — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:14:01 +0000

Dyke,
Boris did start a great thread and there are certainly lots of opinions on this topic. One thing I would stress is the balance between Wayne’s comment on time to deployment and Boris’ on architecture. Selecting a solution that is quick to deploy but can’t scale to meet other internal requirements could result in the enterprise deploying multiple SaaS BI solutions to meet each specific need. This is a problem that has plagued on-premise BI customers, some research shows clients average 5 on-premise BI solutions and as many as 17. SaaS BI customers should learn from that mistake and select a solution that can be deployed quickly but also be applied to other business needs as they arise.