Jaspersoft expands enterprise BI

Open source business intelligence (BI) vendor Jaspersoft has updated its platform, unveiling Jaspersoft 3.7, with added features and an enterprise-specific edition, reports Datamation.

Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile says there are more than 25 feature enhancements in Jaspersoft 3.7, such as expanded in-memory analysis capabilities, including new methods of multidimensional data analysis.

The upgraded capabilities build on features that first debuted with the Jaspersoft 3.5 release in April 2009. He says some of the in-memory enhancements made in the 3.7 were ideas that Jaspersoft had back in the 3.5 timeframe but simply didn't have the time to implement.

Epicor has unveiled the newest version of its retail BI solution, states CNN.

Epicor Retail Business Intelligence 2.0 provides features to help retailers gain critical and timely business insight to gauge and improve execution and assist in enterprise decision-making.

In addition to an enhanced user interface that supports streamlined and intuitive information access, features include an extended data model encompassing a broader range of retail operations across the enterprise.

While the number of users on Twitter, Facebook and other social-networking sites continues to grow, BI practitioners remain sceptical about the value of knowledge such services could generate, says PC World.

Data warehousing firm Kognitio surveyed 125 people about the potential value of social-networking tools, in terms of providing raw data that could be analysed. Respondents were ambivalent about this possible new source of intelligence.

"We wanted to find out if the enterprise architects, and the people in the BI trenches, are bringing in and analysing social media data," says John Thompson, CEO of Kognitio's North American operations. "And for the most part, they aren't."