April 27, 2007
63% of Companies Want On-Demand BI
I recently came across an interesting survey released by InformationWeek that showed almost two-thirds of companies, some 63%, are likely to deploy a software-as-a-services (SaaS) BI solution in the near future. And, even more compelling, 27% said they were "extremely likely" to do so. It's great that companies have woken up to the promise of on-demand BI, but, if you read further into the InformationWeek study, it's hardly surprising why that's the case.
Take, for example, the answers to the question: "What stands in the way of enterprise-wide adoption?" Half of respondents said "integration and compatibility problems", while 48% cited "ease of use issues. Some 38% said "software licenses are too expensive", 33% said "training staff is too time-intensive and costly", and 28% said "scalability issues" held them back from fully deploying BI in their enterprises.
All of those perceived problems are solved with an on-demand BI solution. As I talked about in my post earlier this week, an appliance-based BI solution goes a long way in lowering total cost of ownership, and the same goes for a SaaS solution. On-demand BI lowers TCO precisely because it eliminates the costly and time-consuming issues the companies cited in this study: integration headaches, complexity, expensive software licenses, staff training programs and scalability issues. With an on-demand BI solution, these issues become non-issues.
You just "plug in" the appliance or turn on the SaaS solution (no complicated integration required); dashboards are easy to use, even for non-IT staff; there are no software licenses to pay; there is little or no training required (because on-demand BI solutions are, as I just said, easy to use for non-IT employees); and on-demand BI is infinitely scalable (because you can always add another appliance or increase the number of users on your SaaS contract).
And when these issues are eliminated, costs go down, way down. Which is why on-demand BI also solves another of the problems that companies cited in the study as a reason they've held back on BI deployments; some 45% said there is "no clear ROI" on BI projects. When implementing BI is as easy as turning on a SaaS service, ROI becomes a lot more positive.
Posted by Diaz Nesamoney at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)
April 24, 2007
How BI Appliances Lower TCO
Last week I talked about how more small and mid-sized companies are opting to deploy Business Intelligence appliances. Such appliances are attractive for several reasons, but mainly because they are easy to deploy and lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of implementing an operational BI solution. I thought it might be interesting look at why, and how, an appliance-based BI solution lowers TCO. In a traditional operational BI rollout, there are costs for licensing based on number of users and the hardware platform used, installation and configuration, deployment and maintenance, and scalability and performance. These costs quickly add up.
Let's look at how costs are managed in an appliance-based BI solution. First off, there are no licensing fees to pay for an appliance, because companies pay one price for a package including a pre-configured hardware server, the BI application, and all other necessary software - regardless of the number of users. Second, there are few fees related to installation and configuration, because a BI appliance comes preconfigured out of the box, and most companies have complete implementations up and running in less than 90 days - and some in less than a week. That compares with an average of six months to implement a traditional BI solution. Third, a BI appliance really starts to show its capability to lower TCO in the deployment and maintenance area. That's because BI appliances are designed as "self-service" products that require no IT knowledge to use, so deployment is fast and requires no extra training, and old appliances can be upgraded in a day or two by swapping in a new one. Lastly, appliances also reduce costs in the scalability and performance category. Unlike a traditional operational BI solution that uses hardware servers and operating systems configured for multipurpose computing, an appliance uses 64-bit memory addressing an operating system optimized for that single purpose, ensuring fast response times even for large numbers of users. This efficient resource utilization means BI appliances can often support the same number of users with as few as one-tenth as many hardware servers as other approaches to operational BI would require.
Lowering TCO is top of mind for every company, which is why BI appliances are a great choice for operational BI deployments.
Posted by Diaz Nesamoney at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2007
The Appliance Revolution
I recently came across an interesting blog posting from James Kobielus. In a posting on Wednesday, April 11, he declared "the appliance wars are upon us". [http://jkobielus.blogspot.com/].
I wouldn't call the trend to expand the reach of enterprise applications by offering them on a hardware-based appliance a full-out "war" - more like a "revolution". But I do agree with his assessment that "appliance hype is building to a fever pitch." That's because many enterprise software vendors, from the startups to the biggies, are embracing the appliance as an efficient way to get their applications to the most customers with the least headache. And it's working. More mid-size customers are able to implement BI solutions, and other enterprise applications, because appliances make it easy and painless to do so.
Integrated, plug-and-play appliances are a welcome sight to small and mid-size companies that don't have the IT resources to implement a full-blown, traditional BI solution. By decreasing complexity and lowering total cost of ownership, BI appliances are bringing BI to the masses. I say "vive la revolution!"
Posted by Diaz Nesamoney at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
