We will give you the debrief on the event next week: what part does SaaS BI have to play for example… Without doubt there will also be plenty of talk about the ‘hot’ topic of the moment ‘Big Data’. Here is the agenda for the summit

See you soon !

Contact Rachel Delacour on rachel@wearecloud.com

A report from Gartner released this week shows that more companies are turning to BI in the cloud as an alternative to the traditional on-premise solutions. Nearly one third of organizations either already use or plan to use cloud or software-as-a-service solutions to augment their central business intelligence (BI) functions.

Of 1,364 IT managers in the Gartner survey almost a third (27%) already utilise or plan to improve their BI options with cloud based solutions. A further 17% said they already have or plan to completely overhaul their current BI functions and replace it with a SaaS solution.

SaaS-y BI

Saas products hold many advantages over traditional on-premise solutions which are often associated with long lead times and a demand for highly technical expertise. Cloud solutions don’t have these problems and can compliment existing IT infrastructure whilst still providing powerful functionality. Cloud solutions offer wider access and sharing capabilities, allowing users to dig into their data whenever and wherever they need to. A SaaS pay-as-you-go pricing model provides more flexibility and low capital expenditure. James Richardson, research director at Gartner said:

“Business users are often frustrated by the deployment cycles, costs, complicated upgrade processes and IT infrastructures demanded by on-premises BI solutions. SaaS- and cloud-based BI is perceived as offering a quicker, potentially lower-cost and easier-to-deploy alternative, though this has yet to be proven.”

As GigaOm reported earlier today, “the momentum for SaaS is strong”. Such advantages have lead legacy solutions to start offering their own SaaS offerings, however users need to be wary as some vendors are attempting to ride the cloud wave by merely re-branding existing apps without offering true cloud functionality, known as cloud washing. Bime is a true cloud BI, solution born and built in the cloud, incorporating all the best and most current technologies into our solution to harness the advantages mentioned above. We gambled on the cloud a long time ago and although BI has been slow in its uptake of cloud compared to other sectors, this latest Gartner research shows that the clouds are forming around BI !

Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2012

On another Gartner related note we will be attending the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit taking place on 6-7 February in London. We’d love to see you there so if you are also attending get in contact !

In this months newsletter:
• Bime recognized in Gartner Who’s Who report
• Client Testimonial: Spicy Lemon, Dutch anti-virus software distributor
• Client Testimonial: Bugseye, Australian business consultancy
• Dashboard of the Month: Analyze your email campaign

Read it here!

The diagram above positions the vendors into 3 categories:
1. Dashboard Tool Vendors=> vendors of dashboard solutions (rather than pre-packaged)
2. Business Intelligence Platform Vendors => contains the ‘traditional’ vendors
3. Analytic Visualization Tool Vendors=> vendors oriented towards analytical data visualization

Bime is positioned at the crossover of two categories: Analytic Visualization Tool Vendors and Dashboard Tool Vendors. Obviously, we would like Bime to be positioned at the centre of the 3 categories but only Microstrategy and QlikTech are currently positioned here.

An important point to note in this study is that the “pure cloud” actors and the “installed” traditional type of vendors were treated the same way and Bime ranks in two of the categories. The traditional vendors mainly occupy the category “BI Platform”.

The introduction to this study specifies how data visualization gives new life to BI tools and how to the delight of analysts, interactive dashboards are replacing static dashboards, allowing for ad hoc analysis for the user. The analysis also focuses on the growing number of small and new vendors offering highly advanced analytical capabilities often built primarily for business users as oppose to more technical IT users.

The report is available for purchase here, in which a summary of Bime and other solutions is provided.

Cloud Computing – Perhaps the most talked about technology of the moment, Gartner predict that the cloud has the potential to make a “long term and broad” impact. Despite the amount of hype currently surrounding the technology, it is still in its infancy, with Gartner predicting the market will continue to develop in 2012 as enterprises move from trying to understand the cloud, to making decisions on selected workloads to implement on cloud services and where they need to build out private clouds.

Big Data – Again, another term which has become widely used in 2011. Gartner notes that the size, complexity and speed of delivery of data has now exceeded the amount traditional data centres can deal with. Thus, this new data requires the development of new “exotic” technologies just to manage the volume of data alone and Gartner believes a range of new technologies to deal with the ‘big data’ problem will cause disruption in 2012.

In-Memory Computing – Gartner predicts a dramatic increase in the use of flash memory in IT systems. The increasingly large amounts of memory available are driving more in-memory platforms including in-memory analytics.

The full Gartner top 10 strategic technology trends for 2012 are as follows:
1. Media Tablets
2. Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces
3. Contextual and Social User Experience
4. Internet of Things
5. App Stores and Marketplaces
6. Next-Generation Analytics
7. Big Data
8. In-Memory Computing
9. Extreme Low-Energy Servers
10. Cloud Computing

To read the full Gartner press release click here.

What is the hype cycle and how do you use it?
“Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities. Gartner Hype Cycle methodology gives you a view of how a technology or application will evolve over time, providing a sound source of insight to manage its deployment within the context of your specific business goals.”. See Gartner’s page dedicated to Hype Cycles for more detail.

Explanation of the different stages of a hype cycle

According to Gartner’s analysis for 2011, cloud/Web platforms are almost at the bottom of the “trough of disillusionment”, and Big Data has appeared on the “peak of inflated expectations”. This generally gives the impression that it will hit the mainstream in less than five years. According to ReadWriteWeb, “Just past the peak of the hype cycle is when a technology is being adopted by more than the early adopter crowd.”. Gartner supposes that a technology that has made it to the trough of disillusionment does still not enjoy widespread adoption – less than 5% of the audience has fully adopted a technology at this stage. When 20% to 30% of the audience has adopted a technology, Gartner claims that it has reached the plateau of productivity.

Here’s the 2011 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies:

The “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” report is the longest-running annual Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that IT managers should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.

Gartner’s view is that the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets despite sluggish economic growth in most regions. Organizations continue to turn to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business.

BI ranked number five on the list of the top 10 technology priorities for chief information officers (CIOs) in 2011, according to Gartner’s annual global CIO survey published last month.

“It’s a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong,” said Ian Bertram, managing vice president at Gartner. “This market segment has remained strong because the dominant vendors continued to put BI, analytics and performance management at the centre of their messaging, while end-user organizations largely continued their BI projects, hoping that resulting transparency and insight will enable them to cut costs and improve productivity and agility down the line.”

According to Gartner, the year 2010 continued to be frustrating for many customers acquired as part of the consolidation frenzy of 2007 and 2008, as they upgraded and expanded BI purchases in line with their enterprise application and information management stacks.

Mr. Bertram said the demand side of the BI platform market in 2010 was defined by an intensified struggle between business users’ need for ease of use and flexibility on the one hand, and IT’s need for standards and control on the other.

“With ‘ease of use’ now surpassing ‘functionality’ for the first time as the dominant BI platform buying criterion, vocal, demanding and influential business users are increasingly driving BI purchasing decisions, most often choosing easier to use data discovery tools over traditional BI platforms — with or without IT’s consent,” said Mr. Bertram.

Gartner has identified three major demand-side factors that continue to expand use and drive BI platform revenue growth:

1) Consumerization of BI

BI tools must be simple, mobile and “fun” in order to expand use and value. Business users are demanding the same experience from their BI tools that they have come to enjoy with their personal tools. The need for more intuitive and interactive BI tools and applications extends to users on the go, but the vast majority of organizations have yet to embrace mobile BI. This is set to change very quickly with the proliferation of Apple’s iPhone and iPad products.

2) Support for Extreme Data Performance; Emerging Data Sources

Capabilities that enable the analysis of large, volatile and diverse data will open up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of BI growth. This includes in-memory technology and social and content analytics. Combining these capabilities with support for extreme data volumes and consumer-oriented tools opens up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of growth.

3) BI as a Decision Platform

Gartner’s user surveys show that “improved decision making” is the top driver of BI purchases. Capabilities that will evolve BI from an information delivery system to a decision platform will increase the value of BI and drive its growth.

Source: Gartner.com

“The market for BI and analytics is undergoing gradual evolution,” said Neil Chandler, research director at Gartner. “By 2014, the metamorphosis of BI from IT-owned and report-centric will be virtually complete for a large number of organizations. These organizations will change what types of BI and analytics they use. They will change how they procure them and where they procure them from, and they will modify how information feeds decision making. BI and analytics leaders should embrace the technology, market and management trends that will transform this field within a few years.”

As part of its Predicts 2011 body of research, Gartner has identified four key BI predictions to help organizations plan for 2011 and beyond:

1- By 2013, 33 percent of BI functionality will be consumed via handheld devices.
2- By 2014, 30 percent of analytic applications will use in-memory functions to add scale and computational speed. By 2014, 30 percent of analytic applications will use proactive, predictive and forecasting capabilities.
3- By 2014, 40 percent of spending on business analytics will go to system integrators, not software vendors.
4- By 2013, 15 percent of BI deployments will combine BI, collaboration and social software into decision-making environments.

For the original article, click here.

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The webinar started off with a quick description of how what a Hype Cycle is all about. To remind you, Hype Cycles are management models that help organizations understand the landscape of technology maturity and markets, and to decide which technology innovations to adopt, postpone or ignore, and when is an appropriate time to adopt. The Gartner Hype Cycle model was first published 15 years ago, and has grown to an annual release of between 70 and 80 Hype Cycles per year.

See the Hype Cycle explained below.

Jackie Fenn went on to discuss some specialized Hype Cycles, one of which was the Cloud and Platforms Hype Cycle – including private cloud computing, cloud computing, cloud/web platforms, mobile application stores, activity streams and Internet micropayment systems. You can see their positions on the 2010 Hype Cycle below.

As you can see, private cloud computing is making its way up the Technology Trigger, towards the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Fenn explains that certain industries (e.g. Governments) are realizing the benefits of cloud computing but are concerned about the level of security for their data – enter the private cloud.

She also makes the very valid point that most of the technologies included in the Gartner Hype Cycles are not new – they are niche ideas that early-adopters have already been using, which are moving towards becoming mainstream technologies.

You can see cloud computing has crept past the Peak of Inflated Expectations and is making its way down the curve towards the Slope of Enlightenment – in other words, cloud computing is about to explode! How can we use this kind of information to our advantage as an organisation? You’ll see on the graph above that each technology is marked differently on the curve – this tells us the timeframe in which Gartner expects the technology to reach mainstream adoption. They have predicted that cloud computing will be mainstream within 2-5 years time.

How else can we visualize and interpret this information? A priority matrix is published alongside every Hype Cycle. Priority matrices are useful for detailed technology prioritization – they are essentially risk/benefit matrices which enable the user to look beyond the hype and assess technology opportunities in terms of their relative impact on the enterprise and the timing of that impact. Take a look at the Emerging Technologies Priority Matrix for 2010 below.

The vertical “expectations” axis has been replaced with “benefit” which helps us decide which technologies to invest in. The top left hand corner contains “high priority” technologies – where we should focus our early efforts and resources – e.g. cloud computing, cloud/web platforms, mobile application stores. These are low-risk high-benefit technologies that are likely to become mainstream within the next 5 years.

On the other side, in the top right hand corner, we have technologies with a potentially very high return – but also a higher risk. As it stands in 2010, these include autonomous vehicles and mobile robots. Don’t expect to see these technologies emerging anytime soon, but when they do, they have the potential to be of high value. These are the type of technologies that are often ignored – so keep an eye on them, as early-adopters are already moving with these things.

Cloud computing is well-positioned to become a high priority for organizations over the next few years as more and more people realize its benefit and low-risk. When you compare its position in last years Hype Cycle (see our previous post Gartner’s hype cycle for 2009: SAAS business intelligence is on the rise) you can see the graduation of cloud computing along the curve. You will also notice that some technologies such as private cloud computing were not even on Gartner’s radar last year, which shows just how quickly technology is adopted and how fast it matures, reinforcing the importance of early investment in such technology.

You can access the slides from the webinar here or watch the recorded webinar here.

The recent report released by Gartner says all cloud services customers should have some basic rights to protect their interests. We’ll briefly outline their ideas :

What are your rights as the consumer?

1. The right to retain ownership, use and control one’s own data

Service consumers should retain ownership and rights to their own data. The provider must specify exactly what it can do with the consumer’s data and any contract must provide for the clear disposition of the service consumer’s data, in the case that the provider can no longer provide service.

2. The right to service-level agreements that address liabilities, remediation and business outcomes

All computing services suffer slowdowns and failures at some point along the line. However, cloud services providers rarely commit to recovery times or spell out details of the remediation process. The provider’s contract should not simply guarantee an x amount of turnaround time; it should really specify how it plans to deliver the remedy.

3. The right to notification and choice about changes that affect the service consumers’ business processes

Every service provider needs at some point to interrupt its services or make other changes in order to increase capacity and ensure that its infrastructure will serve consumers adequately in the long term. However they should give advanced notification of major upgrades or system changes, and grant the consumer some control over the timing of the switch.

4. The right to understand the technical limitations or requirements of the service up front

A lot of service providers fail to fully explain their own systems, technical requirements and limitations, leaving consumers at risk of not being able to adjust to major changes, at least not without a big investment. To save problems in the long-run for both parties, both service consumers and providers must do a better job of keeping each other informed about their technical limitations, particularly for complex, long-term projects.

5. The right to understand the legal requirements of jurisdictions in which the provider operates

If the cloud provider stores or transports the consumer’s data in or through a foreign country, the service consumer becomes subject to laws and regulations it may not know anything about. Service providers should explain which jurisdictions they put data in and what legal requirements the service consumer must therefore meet. The consumer needs reassurance that the provider is not violating any rules for which the consumer may be held accountable.

6. The right to know what security processes the provider follows

Service consumers must understand the processes a provider uses, so that security at one level (such as the server) does not compromise security at another level (such as the network). Service consumers also need to understand the provider’s business continuity plans, so that they can ensure that their own operations continue in the case of an emergency.

What is your responsibility as the consumer?

You have the responsibility to understand and adhere to software license requirements…

Providers and consumers must reach an understanding about how the proper use of software licenses will be assured. On one hand, providers must not be held liable if the consumer violates the licensing agreement by putting the software it licenses from a third party in the cloud. On the other hand, the provider should not agree to an audit directly by the vendor, if the consumer owns the software licenses.

So, to quickly sum up all of the above.. As Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and Gartner fellow says : “Respecting these rights will require effort and expense from providers, but securing the rights will encourage enterprises to put more of their business into the cloud”. Here at We Are Cloud we think these are all valid points, which is why we strive to be as transparent as possible, and we do everything we can to honor the rights of our customers.