IBM, Teradata unveil BI tools

Aiming to grab larger shares of the fast-growing business intelligence (BI) and analytics space, IBM and Teradata unveiled core software and hardware products, says Managing Automation.

IBM rolled out a faster version of its DB2 relational database management software and a new release of its Cognos BI software that it says makes analytics easier to use and easier to share through social networking.

For its part, Teradata unveiled a new version of its database management software that enables a wide range of new analytics tools that make use of temporal and spatial information. Teradata also responded to growing competition from hardware vendors such as Oracle, HP, and IBM by introducing a new generation of its database hardware platforms and appliances that makes use of the latest Intel Xeon microprocessors.

A new report from market analyst Forrester Research recognises global software leader SAP as an industry leader in BI platforms, reveals WinShuttle.

Forrester ranked SAP a leader because it had the strongest market presence among 11 other vendors. The firm specifically evaluated the BusinessObjects SAP data management solutions using 145 different criteria that were grouped into categories, including current offering, strategy and market presence. "SAP BusinessObjects continues to steamroll with innovative products,” Forrester stated in its report.

SAP scored 4.81 in market presence on a scale of zero to five. It's the highest score for market presence achieved by any company evaluated in the report. The software company scored perfectly in the areas of partnership ecosystem, install base and functional applications.

Nominations are now open for the 2011 Gartner BI Excellence Award for the Asia Pacific region, to be presented at its BI & Information Management Summit in Sydney in February 2011, writes Advertiser Talk.

The award recognises organisations in Asia Pacific that demonstrate excellence, innovation and the impact to the business of a program involving the use of analytics, BI or performance management initiatives. Nominations will be accepted from any relevant end-user organisation and will close on 21 January 2011. Technology vendors and service providers are not eligible for the award, but are encouraged to nominate their customers.

“Business intelligence products have reached a stage of maturity, but it's what organisations can do with them to improve their decision making and the impact they can have on a company's business that's important. That is where the real action is,” says Ian Bertram, managing vice-president and BI research team manager for Gartner.