SAS will consolidate and house data from school districts under The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) in order to modernize their systems, protect their data, and deliver savings.

The North Carolina Education Cloud (NCEdCloud), a Race to the Top initiative, will use SAS hosting services to support the critical business functions of local education agencies (LEAs).

Details apart, this is another important move by the public sector into the cloud.

10Gen and Microsoft have signed an agreement that will enable MongoDB users on Windows Azure to access MongoDB’s latest features and ensure the best possible user experience. For example, newly available is the MongoDB Installer for Windows Azure to automate the deployment process.

MongoDB users will be able to take advantage of features such as triple data replication and tutorials—for example, how to deploy a single standalone MongoDB server to Windows Azure Virtual Machines for Windows 2008 R2 Server and CentOS, which opens the door for Linux users to work within Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.

In a recent post on 3 trends in data visualization, we addressed the increasing importance of geolocation capabilities in data analysis. We also looked at how the incorporation of mapping and geolocation capabilities into the feature set of a comprehensive business intelligence (BI) application has brought a new understanding to the BI process. Read the rest of this entry »

SAP has just announced the availability of SAP EPM OnDemand, SAP’s Business Performance offering in the cloud. Launched during the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference, this new solution will deliver specific enterprise functionality for capital and project planning, real-time profit and loss analysis, as well as expense analysis.

SAP will keep expanding EPM OnDemand by adding more specific functionality and is designed to complement other SAP solutions, such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation. EPM OnDemand counts on mobile-ready features powered by SAP HANA and has features to offer mobile and on-demand users an improved user experience.

It will be interesting to see how SAP can compete with strong players in the cloud EPM market, such as Adaptive Planning and Host Analytics.

Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft Server and Tools Business, has officially launched Microsoft’s Windows Server 2012. In a global online launch event Mr. Nadella described how Windows Server 2012 will power what he calls the era of Cloud OS.

Mr. Nadella mentioned that with this launch, Microsoft is set to build the Cloud OS, expanding the traditional functions of an operating system to include services and technologies, which are not generally considered part of an operating system. Could it be possible that we are at the beginning of a new era for computer software design?

Unlike traditional business intelligence (BI) solutions, which aim to analyze historical data with a focus on strategic decision-making support, operational intelligence solutions are designed to bring users support in the analysis and visibility of their business operations. Operational intelligence solutions are becoming key components of an organization’s set of tools for data analysis and decision support. So what are the specific benefits and general features of these types of applications? And how can they benefit your organization?

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With UNIT4’s announcement that it will launch 35 role-based and fast-deployment BI apps via a pay-for-use subscription model, as well as SYSPRO’s announcement of its new Business Software App Store, the idea of consumerization of software comes to mind, again … Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last five years, the business intelligence (BI) space has undergone a huge transformation. The business user community has lobbied for data analysis tools that are easier to use, agile to deploy, and less expensive, thus encouraging the emergence of new products and vendors. These conditions, along with the acquisitions and mergers of software companies looking to offer new applications for analysis and decision-making support, are breeding a new set of innovative tools: the so-called data discovery applications. Read the rest of this entry »

TEC is pleased to announce that WorkflowGen, Advantys’ business process management (BPM) solution, has joined the ranks of TEC certified BPM systems.

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Among the interesting developments at the recent Grape Escape event in Boston was the announcement of UNIT4’s multitenant model for its Agresso ERP offering, which generated a great deal of discussion, if not some controversy. Read the rest of this entry »

SAP has recently unveiled new analytics features for some of its business intelligence (BI) portfolios that are aimed at enhancing access to and manipulation of big data. The feature pack 3.0 for the 4.0 solution release of SAP BusinessObjects includes SAP BusinessObjects BI [Evaluate] and SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge edition [Evaluate].

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If there’s any doubt as to whether the potential of big data could be exploited via the cloud, Kognitio has put that to rest. The cloud analytics database provider has announced the immediate availability of its in-memory analytics platform in Amazon Web Services (AWS), via the AWS Marketplace. Read the rest of this entry »

This month Cloudware unveiled its brand new cloud platform for application performance management. With core enhancements in big data handling, the cloud platform is specifically aimed at organizations that are already using cloud services with Microsoft’s Azure and EC2 platforms. The heat is on, with an increasing number of products and services directing the provision of cloud offerings. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been my experience in the business intelligence (BI) and business performance management (BPM) fields—and I’m sure it’s true in other software areas—that one of the most difficult tasks of all is to put theory into practice. Business theories are usually not set in stone and need to be adjusted to reality, or modified to suit specific cases. This is particularly difficult in the measurement of service performance because of the many considerations to be taken into account that involve both quantitative and qualitative criteria. Read the rest of this entry »

TIBCO, a Palo Alto, California—based provider of a diverse number of business and information technology (IT) software applications, has announced the availability of TIBCO Spotfire 4.5, its business intelligence and analytics platform. This new version contains enhancements in different functional areas. Read the rest of this entry »