IBM bets big on analytics

Business analytics has become one big buzzword for IBM, states Economic Times.

And the reason Big Blue says it's betting so big on it is that computers are more widespread than ever before - in cars, roadways, water grids, just about everywhere.

"When people make local decisions without considering long-term consequences, they may sometimes have to go back to re-implement, which is undesirable and costly," said Robert LeBlanc, VP of middleware software at IBM, at the Software Executive Summit 2010.

Built on the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 PowerPivot platform, NovaView for PowerPivot features managed self-service BI capabilities - a Web interface, analytics, and data level security layer - to help generate impactful insights and make better decisions, reports ThomasNet News.

Native connection to PowerPivot in-memory models lets users perform sophisticated analyses, including smart exceptions, instant calculations, and data formatting.

User can also build reports and create executive dashboards.

IStrategy Solutions has released a set of BI applications that work out of the box with data from the SunGard Higher Education Banner enterprise resource planning system, says Campus Technology.

HigherEd Analytics Suite provides a way for users to do self-service reporting and dashboards.

The release provides a pre-built data warehouse with a library of metrics, dimensions, and reports optimised specifically for higher education management.