IBM expands business analytics

IBM has expanded its Business Analytics and Optimisation practice to focus on solutions for public-sector clients, states eWeek.

IBM initially unveiled its Business Analytics and Optimisation practice in April, but now the systems giant "announced the creation of a new practice focused on delivering advanced analytic solutions to public sector clients”.

IBM will expand its work with federal, state and local government organisations, as well as in fast-growing markets such as healthcare and education, the company said.

The maker of the Prism information visualiser has released PrismCubed, an easy-to-configure business intelligence (BI) product aimed at small to medium enterprises (SME), states InformationWeek.

Last year SiSense released Prism, a visualiser for business data that could create a dashboard view from, for example, an Excel spreadsheet. It was up to the user to build the spreadsheet with the relevant data, however, which increased the time and resources needed for deployment and limited the data that could be queried.

SiSense has now added ElastiCube technology to Prism to create its new line of PrismCubed solutions. ElastiCubes visually link data sources to extract and load the desired information without coding or extensive database work.

More than two-thirds of UK SMEs still rely on spreadsheets as the main tool to support decision-making, according to research, says Computing.co.uk.

The study of 100 directors of SME firms by analyst Quocirca and IBM also shows that 80% of respondents say they have significant problems as a result of using spreadsheets, with issues cited including duplicated data and inaccurate information.

“In a challenging economic climate, it's staggering that mid-market companies are gambling critical company decisions on unreliable spreadsheets and dodgy data,” said Quocirca service director Clive Longbottom.