US army scores with BI

Nucleus Research analysts examined the deployment of IBM Cognos 8 BI version 8.3 at the United States Army's Armament Research Development and Engineering Centre (Ardec) and found the company achieved a 146% return on investment in less than 19 months, reports Market Watch.

Ardec is the US Army's principal research, developer and sustainer of current and future armament and munitions systems.

Looking to cut costs and boost productivity, Ardec explored enhancing business intelligence for more efficient operations.

Mainstream database management system (DBMS) technology faces a challenge from new approaches that reject the relational model. The battleground is set to be the market for business intelligence based on very large databases, says The Register.

Some main players in DBMS software are already jockeying for position, with revamped database products aimed at recapturing ground lost to newer products.

Recently, Microsoft unveiled Kilimanjaro, the next massively scalable version of its SQL Server with a strong BI flavour, while database market number-one Oracle joined forces with Hewlett-Packard to launch its Exadata storage grid.

DC has reported that SAP and Business Objects each lead in one of the two major segments of the performance management tools and applications market, based on software licence and maintenance revenue, states Market Watch.

The aggregate performance management market represents $15.4 billion out of the total $22.1 billion business analytics software market.

The market analysis found SAP leads in performance management applications and Business Objects leads in the performance management tools market. Together, these two segments comprise the broad market for performance management tools and applications.