Open source BI gains ground

Open source business intelligence (BI) has been gaining momentum in recent years, so much that it is even showing up in Gartner Magic Quadrants and Forrester Waves, writes eCRM Guide.

"Adoption of open source platforms will grow faster than adoption of commercial platforms," says Rita Sallam, an analyst at Gartner. While the analyst firm is keen on BI, it only placed one open source product in its latest BI Magic Quadrant - Actuate. But a couple of other open source providers are now firmly on the Gartner radar screen, the report says.

"Jaspersoft and Pentaho have emerged as viable players in the BI platform market," says Sallam. "Both vendors provide comprehensive BI platform capabilities that are comparable in many functional areas with those of traditional BI platform vendors."

The demand for BI, service management skills, transformation projects in financial services, and the increased use of external providers in the NHS were key drivers for IT jobs demand last month, says Network World.

That is the conclusion of the Talent Spotlight report for October from recruitment consultants Badenoch & Clark. Nicola Linkleter, executive director for the public sector at Badenoch & Clark, says there was an easing of recruitment freeze policies. Badenoch & Clark also said increased online shopping was driving IT jobs demand for e-commerce sites.

Linkleter says: "Companies are increasingly looking to compile ever more accurate data and reporting to drive their business forward out of the recession. We're seeing an increase in demand for business intelligence specialists as a result."

Gulf Business Machines (GBM), an IT offerings and service provider, has acquired Performance Systems, a provider of corporate performance management and BI offerings in Middle East, and North Africa, to enhance performance management and BI capabilities, states CBR Online.

Performance Systems was previously a unit of Almasa Business Solutions, which identifies and develops highly specialised business solutions for companies.

The acquisition is said to support GBM's strategy to build more expertise and expand its current offering to include corporate performance management and business intelligence offerings in the region.