Solutions Review Business Intelligence Buyers Guide VI27

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Business Intelligence
Buyer’s Guide
Includes a Category Overview
The Top 10 Questions to Ask
Plus a Capabilities Reference of
the Leading 28 Providers for
Business Intelligence Solutions

Business Intelligence

INTRODUCTION

2017 Buyer’s Guide
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Modern Business Intelligence platforms offer an expansive list of features that are aimed at providing
users with the tools they need to produce actionable insights. Data has become vital to the business
model in many ways, and as a result, organizations are digging deeper into their data than ever before.
Vendors have taken this to heart, developing a slew of new capabilities and feature enhancements to
try and market their software. While some functions, like data discovery, have taken hold, others
remain little more than novelty. An analytics solution is simply a means to an end, and that end is the
production of noteworthy findings that give you an edge over the competition.
Business Intelligence feature offerings remain fractured. Legacy providers continue to offer dashboard
and reporting capabilities that were traditional since widespread adoption of analytics solutions
began. Analytics startups have entered the self-service camp, a market that has boomed in recent
months. There is still plenty of room for the old and new of course, and deciding which solution best
matches up with your organization largely depends on what kind of data environment you live in. As
enterprises move away from IT-centric BI tools, they aim to deploy solutions that enable
democratization and end-user autonomy.
Business Intelligence and Data Analytics has been the top trending
“Business
priority for global CIOs for more than five years. Despite this,
Intelligence
disruption in this sector has forced legacy solution providers to invest
enables
in next-generation capabilities that enterprises require. This market,
organizations to
while previously thought of as a mature technology sector, has seen
learn from the
an advancement that challenges the long-standing narrative. This
past, understand
shift has seen legacy tools and best practices challenged by new and
the present, and
emerging trends, solution providers, and ways of doing business.
predict the future.”
Regardless of whether or not traditional vendors are able to catch up
to the innovations that up-and-coming self-service and data discovery tools currently offer, Business
Intelligence has gone from being an auxiliary part of business to absolutely vital.
Larger stores of unstructured data need to be analyzed in the current day. As a result, adoption of
analytics tools will change drastically in the near term. This new way of doing business is allowing
companies gain important business insights that were never before possible, making them more agile,
responsive, and ultimately, more profitable. As companies collect more and more data, analytics tools
will continually need to evolve to do more – and that is one of the biggest disruptors in the enterprise
market currently.

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These changes have caused tension in organizations between the old way of doing things and the
modern approach to BI. Tension has grown between control and agility, self-service and governance.
IT and the business have started working together to maximize the impact of their data. Now offering
much more than legacy capabilities, advanced solutions are enabling businesses to learn, improve
business processes and move in new, profitable directions.
When it comes to the selection of a new analytics tools for an upcoming BI initiative, where you should
you start? A typical internet search may yield some worthwhile answers, though you’ll likely be
bombarded with sponsored links to so-called expert analysts pushing hidden agendas. At Solutions
Review, we put ourselves in the middle of it all, constantly developing and sharing resources that can
assist buyers of enterprise technology to achieve their goals in selecting tools that best fit their needs.
Inside this resource, we’ve taken the liberty to provide a comprehensive market overview, the top
questions to ask, and full, one-page profiles of the most notable enterprise-class solution providers in
the space.

Timothy King
Editor
Solutions Review

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5 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before
Selecting a Business Intelligence Solution
QUESTION #1

What do I have for data and what do I want to analyze?
Two questions that really need to be asked as one. Without a genuine understanding of each, you
can expect a BI project to fail. Before implementation it is a good idea to do data profiling. Is your
data structured or unstructured? Think about your primary data sources. Do you mainly pull data
from a data warehouse, or does data stream into your company in real-time via social media
channels and customer engagement? Big Data is no longer the exception, it’s the rule, so taking into
account exactly the kinds of data that need analyzing is the key to selection.

QUESTION #2

Do I care about Big Data?
Data Discovery has been the driving force behind the evolution of the modern BI tool. Traditionally,
analytics capabilities ended at reporting on historical data. Modern tools are now helping forwardthinkers evolve into future predictors. In this way, organizations are gaining faster time-to-insight by
relaxing Data Integration and deploying Data Lake technologies. Data Discovery is a vital link in the
facilitation of self-service, which frees up resources and empowers end-users with the tools they
need to run analysis on-demand.

QUESTION #3

Who will my business intelligence users be? Do they need to be a technical resource?
One of the many trends emerging in the Business Intelligence
sector is the move toward self-service. Over the past 10 years
some of the leading Software-as-a-Service players like
Salesforce.com have empowered non-technical users with a
wide-range of reporting tools. Similarly, many of the BI
solutions in this buyers guide present the very compelling
functionality of providing almost anyone the ability to create
and access BI reports, queries, and analytics themselves—
without the need for IT resources.

QUESTION #4

“One of the many
trends emerging
in the BI sector is
the move toward
self-service”

What size company do I want to work with?
The following list of business intelligence solution providers contains some of the largest
technology companies in the world. It also contains young, small and aggressive companies that
may bring a very different sales and service mindset to the table. Have an idea going into the
buying cycle, which type of vendor you are interested in working with. Remember, the vendors you
pick today, may be the partners you can’t live without in a few short years.

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QUESTION #5

Do I want just a dashboard tool, or do I want a whole BI platform?
The category of Business Intelligence is evolving rapidly. Many solutions are now presenting full BI
platforms offering everything from Data Integration, Database Storage and Data Modeling to even
Mobile Application Development tools. Your organization may already have many of those
elements already in place and you need a more basic presentation layer like a reporting/dashboard
tool. There are lots of solutions for that as well. That said the value of a fully integrated platform
that replaces all of those individually acquired data elements may be well worth evaluating during
this buying cycle.

And 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Potential
Business Intelligence Solution Provider
QUESTION #6

How comprehensive is the solution and what company data can it incorporate?
Organizations have collections of data in sales, marketing, finance, operations, customer service
and HR. Many solutions focus on one or two of these data sets while others can incorporate all of
these inputs and provide a complete view of your business across the entire enterprise. Take the
time to truly understand what the solutions you are considering can deliver for business intelligence
across the full spectrum of your organization’s available data.

QUESTION #7

Can I be assured that my data is secure?
A repeating theme you will hear from Business Intelligence
solutions is how easy they are to use – that anybody within your
organization can use self-service tools to create reports.
Ironically, the way BI solutions centralize data so that many
users can access it also creates real security risks for
companies. Rogue inside users or nefarious outside attackers
can potentially steal vast amounts of data through the very selfservice tools being touted as a great benefit. Another
prominent security issue relates to cloud-based solutions that
host your data – or a representation of it – on a collection of
servers outside of your organizational infrastructure. You won’t
be the first to ask, but watch out for pat answers.

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“Ironically, the
way BI solutions
centralize data so
that many users
can access it also
creates real
security risks for
companies.”

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QUESTION #8

Do the technical capabilities of the solution match my business needs?
In other words, does the solution do what you need it to do? This question syncs up with the very
first question you should already have asked yourself, which is determining what exactly it is you
need out of a solution. Now, you can go down your check-list to see if the solutions’ capabilities
match or exceed what you require.

QUESTION #9

How easy is the solution to use?
A powerful BI tool could wind up being a letdown if your IT personnel have trouble using it. For
more complex solutions training is a must, and even then operation can take significant amounts of
time that would be better spent elsewhere. Solutions that offer self-service interfaces, like dragand-drop, can offer your personnel flexibility when operating the software, up to and including lineof-business managers while saving the IT department’s time for more pressing matters.

QUESTION #10

How scalable is the solution?
Your current data sources and volumes will not remain static.
Both are expected to increase in number substantially going
forward. Therefore, you will need to consider how easily a
Business Intelligence solution can handle new sources and
increased volumes of data. Related to this is how scalable is
the application that is integrating that data. An un-scalable Data
Integration application will render a very scalable BI tool
useless, at least on that metric.

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“You will need to
consider how a BI
solution can
handle new
volumes of data”

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Solution Provider Profiles
Alteryx _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 7
Birst ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 9
BOARD _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 10
Datameer _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 11
Denodo _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 12
Domo _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 13
Dundas BI _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 14
Exago _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 15
GoodData _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 16
IBM _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 17
Information Builders _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 18
Logi Analytics _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 19
Looker _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 20
Microsoft _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 21
MicroStrategy ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 22
Oracle ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 23
Pentaho (Hitachi) ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 24
Phocas ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 25
Prognoz ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 26
Pyramid Analytics ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 27
Qlik (Thoma Bravo) ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 28
SAP ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 29
SAS ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 30
Sisense ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 31
Tableau ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 32
TARGIT ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 33
TIBCO ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 34
Yellowfin ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 35

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Alteryx
Alteryx is an American computer software company that provides a
solution to assist with data and comparative analytics processes. Their
solution platform features a visual workflow, and combines ETL (Extract,
Transform, Load) capabilities with spatial analysis. It can also provide
geographic support of sales, marketing, and operation challenges.

Alteryx, Inc.
230 Commerce
Irvine, CA 92602
United States
+1 714-516-2400
www.alteryx.com

From the Company
“Alteryx is the leader in data blending and advanced analytics software. Alteryx Analytics provides analysts with
an intuitive workflow for data blending and advanced analytics that leads to deeper insights in hours, not the
weeks, typical of traditional approaches.
Analysts love the Alteryx analytics platform because they can deliver deeper insights by seamlessly blending
internal, third party, and cloud data; and then analyze it using spatial and predictive drag-and-drop tools. This is
all done in a single workflow, with no programming required. More than 700 customers and thousands of data
analysts worldwide rely on Alteryx daily.”

Key Features
 Information Access – Access key demographic, geographic, and industry-related datasets to combine
with internal data and leverage strategy insight
 Deployment – Predict market conditions and customer behavior through deployable analytical modules to
maintain relevancy
 Allocation – Analysis of marketing programs allows for robust allocation of marketing investment and
greater ROI
 SalesForce Analytics – Enrich CRM data through demographic, firmographic, segmentation, and geospatial data to anticipate customer behavior

Bottom Line
Alteryx offers on-premises desktop and server solutions to allow line-of-business analysts to perform data
blending and advanced analytics in a single workflow. Predictive Analytics are provided via deep integration
of the R statistics and predictive language, with a graphical interface that offers an option to R programming.
Alteryx also offers a cloud-based solution that allows data analysts to create and share analytic applications
with business decision makers.

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Birst
Birst offers an individualized self-service business intelligence platform
that you can adapt to fit your specific needs. Their technology monitors
data throughout your organization with minimal IT involvement. Their
approach leverages 2-Tier BI and Analytics technology to unify and refine
your data, whether it is generated by de-centralized business users or
centralized teams and systems. Their proprietary techniques help ease the
development process of analytical applications, and facilitate flexible
deployment options.

Birst Inc.
153 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA
94108 United States
Tel: +1 866-940-1496
www.birst.com

From the Company
“At Birst we’re giving business meaning to data – by enabling business users to analyze all of their data, from
all types of sources, to solve real problems. Fast. Our enterprise-caliber Cloud BI approach is less costly and
more agile than traditional, on-premise BI and more powerful than Data Discovery. Founded in 2005 by
Business Intelligence experts, we witnessed firsthand the power of enterprise-wide BI platforms, but were
dismayed to see how the fragmented offerings, complexity, and high costs inhibited widespread adoption.
With the rise of powerful Cloud-based technologies, we recognized we could build a robust, multi-tenant BI
platform that would unify the traditionally siloed BI technologies, automate critical data management tasks,
and greatly reduce complexity—speeding deployments and reducing overall costs.”

Key Features
 2-Tier Architecture – Provides the ability to connect to data wherever it is located, including data
warehouses, cloud data, or user-generated spreadsheets
 Embedding & White Labeling – Provides capabilities to create the user experience you want to deliver to
customers. Users can change themes, colors, and layouts with ease
 Security – Provides physical, operation, application, and data security

Bottom Line
Birst is offered as a Software-as-a-Service cloud-based technology platform. It can be run on-premise as a
software appliance (Birst Appliance) which encapsulates all its dependencies in a pre-integrated and selfcontained package.

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BOARD International
BOARD provides functionalities needed to build your BI software and CPM
application solutions without the use of programming. Their solution
provides native integration between your information base and
applications, and ensures that any changes are propagated to data and
vice versa. They also provide reporting, multi-dimensional analysis, ad hoc
querying, and dashboards.

BOARD International
Piazza Bernasconi 5
Palazzo Mercuri
6830 Chiasso
Switzerland
+41 91 911 6020
www.board.com

From the Company
“BOARD helps organizations reach a single vision of their performance in a simple and extremely effective
manner. Information originating from various sources is integrated into a virtual data repository shared by the
entire organization, thus providing business users with a customized but unitary vision. The native integration
between the information base and applications ensures that changes made to applications are propagated to
data, and vice versa.
From the outset, BOARD was conceived as a solution to maximize the efficiency of organizations’ decisionmaking processes, by integrating top Business Intelligence software (BI) with Corporate Performance
Management tools (CPM): a visionary approach named Management Intelligence.”

Key Features
 Toolkit – A scalable, multidimensional database with data reading and transformation tools (ETL),
application user interface environment (client and web), security, and a multi-tier architecture for system
delivery
 Formatting – Allows you to export formats using Excel, XML, HTML, and CSV, and also provides
centralized access, personalized access, email, application integration, and MS Office capabilities
 Scorecards – Assists with making in-depth analyses of trends through drill-down and drill-through
functions to navigate events and dynamics through various KPIs

Bottom Line
BOARD’s Business Intelligence solution is a web-based platform with a SOA architecture based on the
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) – the unified programming model for building service-oriented
applications on a Microsoft platform. BOARD can be deployed as on-premise, on-hosting or via cloud. BOARD
cloud is Software as a Service (SaaS) option and is backed by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

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Datameer
Datameer is a Big Data and visualization company based in California,
offering self-service and schema-free Big Data Analytics. Their software
provides cloud-based professional and workgroup editions, as well as onpremise enterprise edition and single licensing. They also have an optional
add-on, Smart Analytics, which lets you locate patterns and relationships
within your data. Their Smart Execution add-on automatically selects
specific framework or combinations of frameworks based on analyses.

Datameer, Inc.
1550 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA
94103 United States
+1 415-817-9558
www.datameer.com

From the Company
“Datameer makes Big Data Analytics simple, quickly transforming businesses into data-driven organizations. A
modern BI platform that combines self-service Data Integration, preparation, analytics and visualization
functionality with enterprise grade governance and security features, Datameer enables data democratization
without chaos.
Datameer makes Big Data Analytics simple, quickly transforming businesses into data-driven organizations. A
modern BI platform that combines self-service Data Integration, preparation, analytics and visualization
functionality with enterprise grade governance and security features, Datameer enables data democratization
without chaos.

Key Features
 Agile Data Discovery – Datameer offers a fluid, iterative data discovery workflow and user experience that
allows analysts to rapidly experiment and explore their data for answers
 Put Pipelines into Production – Datameer offers a job scheduler and monitoring features to regularly run
analytic jobs to produce new results
 Analyst-friendly – Microsoft Excel is the world’s most popular analysis tool. Datameer provides a
spreadsheet interface similar to Excel that will be familiar to analysts and business users alike

Bottom Line
Datameer is architected for Hadoop and uses the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) to import, export,
store and manage data. It has an HTML5 web user interface and supports all browsers. Datameer is
comprised of hundreds of plugins, similar to architectures like Eclipse.

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Denodo
Denodo is a market leader in Data Virtualization. Founded in 1999 and
based in Palo Alto, California, Denodo offers high-performance Data
Integration and abstraction across a wide range of Big Data, enterprise,
cloud, unstructured data sources and real-time data services. Denodo also
enables access to unified business data for agile BI, analytics, and singleview applications. They are privately held and have roughly 300 customers
of varying sizes.

Denodo
525 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
United States
+1 650 566 8833
www.denodo.com

From the Company
“Denodo is the leader in data virtualization providing agile, high performance data integration and data
abstraction across the broadest range of enterprise, cloud, big data and unstructured data sources, and realtime data services at half the cost of traditional approaches. Denodo’s customers across every major industry
have gained significant business agility and ROI.”

Key Features
 Logical Data Warehouse – A data system that follows the ideas of traditional EDW (star or snowflake
schemas) and includes data from external sources as well as data from one or more core data
warehouses and data marts.
 Logical Data Lake – With the Denodo Platform, it is possible to leave all of the source data exactly where
it is, stored across myriad heterogeneous systems, and to establish a virtual, “logical data lake” for
accessing all of the data. To users and all applications that consume the data, this data lake appears as a
single unified view of the data. It contains no data of its own; instead, it contains the metadata for
accessing all of the sources, and it abstracts the users from all of these details. Users can run queries
across the entire logical data lake as if all the data were stored in a single unified repository.
 Cloud – The Denodo Platform is the first and only data virtualization solution to be provisioned as a virtual
image on Amazon AWS Marketplace.

Bottom Line
The Denodo platform offers data virtualization for joining multistructured data sources from database
management systems, documents and a wide variety of other Big Data, cloud and enterprise sources.
Connectivity support includes relational databases, legacy data, flat files, CML, packed applications and
emerging data types including Hadoop. Denodo also offers self-service data preparation feature capabilities.

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Domo
Domo, founded in 2010, is designed to provide access to data without the
requirement of IT involvement. Their platform can monitor sales and
inventories in real time, and integrate with Salesforce, Google Analytics,
Box, LinkedIn, Instagram, among others. Their native data source
connectors exceed 300, and their Workbench feature allows you to move
on-premise data security using their software. Their platform is highly
customizable, and their Analyzer feature can be tailored to filter out
unnecessary information.

Domo, Inc.
772 E. Utah Valley Dr.
American Fork, UT 84003
United States
+1 800-899-1000
www.domo.com

From the Company
“Domo brings together in one platform all the technical components required for business users to get
meaningful value from business data. With Domo, users can easily connect, prepare, visualize, collaborate and
optimize around data for better decision making and improved performance.
Domo helps executives make faster, better decisions and improve performance by providing one platform from
which they can easily connect to, prepare, visualize and collaborate around data. By automating and
normalizing the way data is collected and presented, Domo delivers users the confidence that they know their
businesses the way they should.
Founded in 2010, Domo is the second fast-growth, data-centric company launched and run by Josh James, cofounder and CEO of the web analytics powerhouse Omniture.”

Key Features
 DomoBuzz – Gives you the ability to have conversations with your workforce where your data is to more
effectively communicate, loop in key stakeholders, etc. This includes notifications, preserving historical
context, looping in specific employees, and remote collaboration
 Domo Magic – Enables you to clean your data, combine datasets, transform and prepare your data
without SQL knowledge. Also enables scheduling transformation jobs via ETL capability
 Card Builder – Provides flexible options for data visualization, creative tools, and a simple drag-and-drop
interface

Bottom Line
Domo is a cloud-based executive management platform that enables businesses to see key data in real time
from across the entire organization—sales, operations, marketing, HR, finance and more—in one place, on
any device.

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Dundas BI
Dundas BI is a Business Intelligence, analytics and dashboard platform
that helps organizations turn their data into enterprise-wide, interactive
visualizations for faster insights and better decision making. Dundas BI
gives users control over their experience and is easy to customize to the
preferences and unique needs of different kinds of users. Dundas BI is
designed on an open API, making it adaptable to fit the needs of a wide
variety of use cases.

Dundas Data
Visualization
250 Ferrand Drive,
Suite 500
Toronto, ON 94104
Canada
+1 416-467-5100
www.dundasbi.com

www.gooddata.com

From the Company
“Dundas BI is an open, flexible BI platform that can consolidate data from any source, providing seamless data
delivery and consistent user experience. Dundas BI supports data preparation, integration, reporting,
dashboards, and analysis exactly the way users need it. With full API support, plug-ins and in-app scripting,
Dundas BI is extensible in and out, and can be easily integrated and embedded into existing systems,
applications and administration.

Key Features
 Smart Visualizations – Automatically visualize your data in different ways and interact with it without
having to through data preparation steps
 End-to-End Extensibility – One agile application that auto-adapts to the user’s skills, covering BI needs
from data preparation to presentation and self-service in an open API
 Embedded BI and Analytics – Integrate into other applications and create your own multi-tenant white
labeled solution, offering your customers a superior experience

Bottom Line
Dundas BI can be easily deployed on-premise or via your preferred clod hosting provider, Using a best of both
worlds approach, Dundas combines the strength of IT-led solutions, such as governance, scheduling and
data preparation and the strengths of self-service tools such as easy-to-use interactive visualizations, user
collaboration and on-the-fly data blending. The agility of Dundas BI and responsive support allows users to
create BI solutions that work and behave exactly as their business demands it.

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Exago
Exago is a Business Intelligence software provider that provides selfservice ad hoc reporting, dashboards and analytics to applications.
Headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, Exago is privately owned, selffunded and profitable. The company’s Embedded Analytics tool, Exago BI,
features an open API, extensibility and a fully customizable UI that allows
technical staff to further integrate the solution within their environment
and across multiple applications and data sources.

Exago
2 Enterprise Drive
Shelton, CT 06484
United States
+1 203-225-0876
exagoinc.com

From the Company
Exago BI is built from the ground up for application software and service providers who operate in multi-tenant
environment. Because our clients occupy many different industries, a one-size-fits-all solution won’t do. Each
Exago client has a different technical environment, different data structure, and different types of end users.
Our “API first” approach means our clients can tailor Exago BI to meet their requirements rather than the other
way around.
Exago was founded in 2006 by software entrepreneurs who were frustrated by reporting solutions that were
too complex for non-technical business users to manage without help from IT. Exago BI was created to give
these users complete control over their data with powerful, flexible, self-service ad hoc/operational reporting
and interactive dashboards.”

Key Features
 100 percent web-based – End-users require only an internet browser for full functionality, with no plug-ins
required
 Single Sign-On – Designed as a single sign-on through host application
 Highly Customizable – Each user can configure the features, look, feel, language and data access
 Flexible Deployment Options – Can be deployed on-site, in the cloud or both

Bottom Line
Exago BI is completely web-based and a prime embedded solution for software companies looking to provide
ad hoc reporting, dashboards and business analysis to their clients. Integration with web-based SaaS and or
on-prem applications allows non-technical users to create reports and dashboards with no IT intervention.
Exago BI offers a wide variety of advanced features including interactive data visualizations, geo-maps,
drilldowns, user-defined formulas, and data merging into predefined templates.

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GoodData
A cloud BI and analytics specialist, GoodData provides a cloud-based PaaS
solution, and is a combination of internal and external data for
monetization. Their software includes data integration, embedded
intelligence, and development, and is notable for their performance within
social media and digital marketing spectrums. Their “Open Analytics
Platform” enables data governance and simple migration processes. Direct
query access via JDBC with an optional ETL/ELT engine called
CloudConnect helps with data integration operations and supports third
party access.

GoodData
111 Sutter Street,
San Francisco, CA
94104 United States
+1 415-200-0186
www.gooddata.com

From the Company
“At GoodData we believe data is for everyone. From the executives in the corner offices, to the marketing and
sales teams that drive growth, to the service teams on the front lines with the customers. And we believe that
when people are given access to data, they will innovate.
GoodData securely hosts your data, enables you to build and manage a multi-dimensional data model from a
variety of data sources, provides the tools to analyze data in a collaborative environment, and the means to
share the results with others. An online space for your data. GoodData makes it easy to bring business data
into a single online space for reporting and analysis.”

Key Features
 Automated Distribution – One-to-Many Analytics enables you to create and distribute high-value analytics
to various business units, partners, and customers. Also allows you to benchmark performance and add
new audiences without cost
 Infrastructure – Supports your data pipeline and OEM analytic experience while providing customization
flexibility required by ISVs
 Scalability – Simplifies the analytic process through responsive dashboards and performance insight.
Security architecture includes two-factor authentication, integrated SSO, tenant data isolation, encryption
in transit, backup and penetration testing and monitoring

Bottom Line
GoodData is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution with a multi-tenant, open architecture. Is includes a
choice of public or private cloud offerings. Distributed metadata storage powered by Cassandra and
MongoDB. Data storage powered by NetAppy.

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IBM
IBM’s Cognos Analytics provides an integrated suite that assists with
reporting, analysis, score carding, and monitoring of events and metrics. It
enables you to develop dashboards, interactive reports, custom analysis,
and ad hoc queries. Their software is built on an enterprise platform, with
one environment for teams, departments, and large enterprises. They also
provide Cognos Express for midsize businesses, which is a scalable and
simple solution to minimize IT demand.

IBM Corporation
1 New Orchard Road
Armonk, NY
United States 10504
+1 877-426-3774
www.ibm.com

From the Company
“The IBM Cognos family delivers analytics into the hands of everyone to drive better business outcomes. Each
family member offers reporting, analysis, modeling, planning and collaboration to address the needs of BI,
performance management and business analytics initiatives.
The Cognos family offers products for Individuals, who need freedom and flexibility yet want to access
corporate BI and share insights with wider communities. Workgroups or midsize businesses, who need to be
up and running fast with a BI solution that is easy to install and manage. And Organizations, who need BI to
meet strategic objectives spanning multiple functions, levels and business unit.”

Key Features
 Dashboarding – Speeds productivity and assists with aligning employees, track workforce performance,
and course correct in accordance with market conditions
 Self-Service – Provides an intuitive platform for users to solve individual or workforce challenges through
a web-based unified solution
 SoftLayer Cloud Infrastructure – Offers three offerings to address your business’ needs – Workgroup for
50 users or more; Standard for 100+; and Enterprise for 150+

Bottom Line
The IBM Cognos BI architecture uses platform independent technology, such as Extensible Markup Language
(XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and Web Services Definition Language (WSDL). The IBM
Cognos BI architecture features a Web-based user interface for viewing, creating, and administering reports,
analyses, scorecards, and events.

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Information Builders
Headquartered in New York City, Information Builders offers many BI
solutions for integration and data integrity, and is available via cloud as
well as mobile. They provide access to a Technical Support Center for
community, technical content, and support services. Their software assists
with collaboration within your company, as well as visibility to streamline
workflows. It also can forecast future workloads and activities for resource
allocation and scheduling purposes.

Information Builders
Two Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10121
United States
+1 212-736-4433
informationbuilders.com

From the Company
“Information Builders helps organizations transform data into business value. Our software solutions for
business intelligence and analytics, integration, and data integrity empower people to make smarter decisions,
strengthen customer relationships, and drive growth. Our dedication to customer success is unmatched in the
industry.
WebFOCUS allows even non-technical end-users to access, customize, and assemble real-time interactive
dashboards and run self-service reports and ad hoc queries to obtain unique insights. Advanced visualization
and predictive modeling can be embedded into these solutions, enabling users to ensure that every decision is
the result of analytics, regardless of their level of technical expertise.”

Key Features
 WebFOCUS – A technical library that provides a singular, comprehensive platform for analytics and
performance management. Also integrates and leverages security within your system
 iWay Integration – Consolidates data and accelerates efficiency, which in turn reduces manual effort in
real-time to help with the process
 iWay Integrity – Ensures data quality and delivers a viewing from each interaction point, and gives you a
consistent view of your data

Bottom Line
WebFOCUS operates on all major platforms – such as Windows, Linux, UNIX, and IBM i (System i, AS/400)
and System z (mainframe, including MVS and OS/390). It features Java-based, multi-threaded, distributed
architecture and native data adapters. WebFOCUS can be deployed in the cloud as a Software as a Service
(SaaS) solution as well.

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Logi Analytics
Logi Analytic’s business analytics platform allows you to create analytic
applications, deploy scalable dashboards and reports. It also enables you
to manage self-service analytics and deliver them to business users, as
well as embed your data into applications your business utilizes daily.
Their software offers interactive capabilities that may be customized
according to evolving end-user requirements.

Logi Analytics
7900 Westpark Drive
McLean, VA
United States 22102
+1 888-564-4965
www.logianalyics.com

From the Company
“Logi is a business intelligence company that began with a vision about how the web could be used to
transform the way people see and use data. In 2000, CTO Arman Eshraghi founded the company to develop
technology that would let web developers easily embed compelling data visualizations inside websites.
Logi Info allows IT to quickly build and deploy web-based dashboards, reports, and interactive analytics and
deploy them to any size audience for a single price. The underlying technology that makes this possible
includes a high-performance Web engine together with a desktop authoring system that comes with hundreds
of pre-built modules and visual elements that all work together seamlessly.”

Key Features
 InfoBoard – A social community that enables you and your team to see, search, and organize relevant
analysis to leverage communication and collaboration
 LogiVision – Offers a visual analytics application to let you author dashboards and reports without
requiring an IT professional, which can be customized and embedded within any of your applications
 Web Architecture – Available for installation on-promise at your business facility, and is also cloud-ready
for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, HP Haven on Demand

Bottom Line
LogiXML offers licensing models based on your server configuration rather than on the number of users.
Support both Java and .NET, and is a cross “platform” which means you can develop for one and deploy to
the other. Logi pre-build connectors for RDBMS platforms, including: SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, MySQL,
PostgreSQL and more.

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Looker
Looker’s software provides you with a data exploration and discovery BI
platform. It can assist with the curation of self-service data analytics
process throughout your enterprise. Their solution allows you to create
charters, graphs, and tables, and the ability to match data to your KPIs.
Their platform can be distributed on their infrastructure or yours depending
on whether you are seeking a managed, on-premise solution or in the
cloud, and eases the distribution process for rapid implementation.

Looker
101 Church St. #400
Santa Cruz, CA
United States 95060
+1 (888) 960-2331
www.looker.com

From the Company
“Looker brings data and business teams together by making it easy for everyone to find, explore and
understand the data that drives their business. Unlike any other analytics solution, Looker’s unique approach
gives data teams the tools to curate a self-service data experience for their organization– making sure that the
entire company is looking at one source of truth – including centralized definitions for all important metrics.
The result is a true culture of data where everyone understands what’s working and decisions can be made
faster and with confidence. Companies such as eBay, Etsy, and Sony have made this transition using Looker as
the catalyst.”

Key Features
 LookML – A modeling language that turns transformations and complex logic in reusable a meta-data
layer. You may combine calculations accordingly
 Advanced Analytics – Allows you to search your company data and build charts and graphs, and enables
Big Data processing as well as the ability to leverage dialect-specific SQL within back-end databases
 Powered By Looker – Enables embedding of your analytics into any website, portal or app, or to OEM the
entire Looker platform to create a branded discovery environment

Bottom Line
Looker offers its platform on-premise or in the cloud. Looker integrates with Amazon Redshift, Teradata
Aster, HP Vertica, Greenplum, Impala, BigQuery and Spark, among others. Also provides the ability to
integrate with Google Docs and Sheets, and a Ruby SDK to help with building custom apps.

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Microsoft
Power BI, Microsoft’s solution, transforms your data into visualizations to
assist with organization and business focus. They provide customizable
dashboards and reporting software, as well as drag-and-drop gestures.
Their solution provides Excel spreadsheets, on-premise data sources,
Hadoop data sets, streaming data, and cloud services to assist with
analyses. You can connect your enterprise data from multiple sources,
shape that data, and create reports to send out to your team.

Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
United States
+1 425-882-8080
www.microsoft.com

From the Company
“Get complete self-service BI for your on-premises and cloud-based data by using the new data discovery and
analysis features in Excel with the collaboration capabilities in the new Power BI for Office 365 online service.
Search, discover, and access data within and outside your organization and, with just a few clicks, shape and
transform data. Analyze and create interactive visualizations that uncover hidden insights to share and
collaborate from anywhere, on any device.
Analyze data ranging from a few rows to hundreds of millions of rows instantly on your desktop using Excel
data models, new in 2013 powered by xVelocity in-memory analytics engine.”

Key Features
 Connect to Data – Accessibility and insight into your company though Excel spreadsheets and various
other services you utilize
 Drag-and-Drop – A free-form canvas that enables you to visually explore your data, and also provides
report authoring assistance
 Azure Stream Analytics – Analyze high-volume, streaming data with live operational dashboards, which
may be updated in real time accordingly

Bottom Line
Microsoft self-service BI on-premise and cloud-based data by using the new data discovery and analysis
features in Excel with the collaboration capabilities in the new Power BI for Office 365 online service. Power
BI Office 365 is a cloud-based service.

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MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy can be deployed in data centers or as cloud services. Their
platform can catalog internal and external data, and is deployable onpremise or as a cloud service. Their solution can be modified and extend
out-of-the-box functionality to suit your business’ needs. Their Bursting
options allow reports or dashboards to be parsed into sub-reports for each
individual subscriber. They also offer code-free mobile app development
and design which increases deployment speed.

Microstrategy, Inc.
1850 Towers
Crescent Plaza
Tysons Corner, VA
22182 United States
+1 703-848-8600
www.microstrategy.com

From the Company
“Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms. The
MicroStrategy BI Platform enables organizations to analyze vast amounts of data and distribute business
insight throughout the enterprise.
The MicroStrategy Mobile Platform lets organizations rapidly build enterprise-caliber mobile applications
needed to mobilize business processes and information. MicroStrategy Applications are a set of application
services designed to help enterprises deploy mobile commerce and loyalty services, build mobile identity and
cyber security services, as well as generate real-time insights into consumer preferences. MicroStrategy
Cloud™ allows enterprises to deploy MicroStrategy BI apps and mobile apps more quickly and with lower
financial risk than with traditional on-premises solutions.”

Key Features
 Office – Allows users to connect to almost any application and map fields using the Automapper
 MicroStrategy SDK – Allows you to customize the product to suit your business needs, and integrate it
with external systems through APIs, sample code, utilities, developer tools, etc.
 Distribution –Deliver personalized views of your enterprise data to every user without overboarding the IT
department. Leverage user preferences and security roles through a single report and present data to
those who need to whom it is relevant

Bottom Line
MicroStrategy presents its solution at a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). It is offered either on-premise or in the
cloud. Cloud platform services enable subscribers to build and deploy any BI application with complete
customization and control, database, and ETL infrastructure.

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Oracle
Oracle is an American corporation based in California, and their BI solution
provides visual analytics and self-service data discovery. It also assists
with operational analysis at scale, security, reliability, performance, and
centralized management, and can be utilized through the cloud, hybrid, or
on-premise deployment. Their Exalytics In-Memory Machine provides
analytics performance through one optimized system. Their in-memory
software features and helps with the configuration of their BI Foundation
Suite and its components.

Oracle Corporation
500 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, CA
94065 United States
+1 650-506-7000
www.oracle.com

From the Company
“Oracle Exadata and Oracle Database 12c, complete with in-database advanced analytics, offer a fast, reliable,
and cost-effective platform for data warehousing and business intelligence that scales easily to meet the
complex reporting and analytics needs of the most demanding organizations.
Oracle Exalytics is a complete solution that includes hardware, an enterprise BI platform and in-memory
analytics software optimized to work together. Oracle Exalytics features powerful compute capacity, abundant
memory and fast networking options optimally configured for in-memory analytics of business intelligence
workloads.
Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite delivers comprehensive capabilities for business intelligence,
including enterprise reporting, ad hoc query, OLAP, dashboards, and scorecards on an architecturally integrated
platform.”

Key Features
 Analytics Platform – Standardizes your enterprise’s analytics strategy on one integrated platform, and
centralizes data models and metrics. Also enables secure access and exploration of data
 Self-Service – Enables your workforce to get started with little to no training, and blends local and
corporate data for more beneficial insight
 In-Memory Enhancements – Improves performance for mash-up data, and provides faster query
performance and deployment, as well as increased memory storage

Bottom Line
Oracle offers traditional client-server solutions through Exadata and Oracle Database. Hardware appliancebased solutions through Oracle Exalytics and Cloud-based solutions through their RightNow Analytics Cloud
Service.

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Pentaho
Recently acquired by Hitachi, Pentaho is a software corporation based in
Florida that offers an integration solution in two editions: Community and
Enterprise. Pentaho’s software follows an open-core business model, and
provides support for Hadoop distributions from Cloudera, Hortonworks,
and MapR. In addition, it provides plug-ins to NoSQL databases such as
Cassandra and MongoDB, as well as connections to specialized data
stores like Amazon Redshift and Splunk.

Pentaho Corporation
5950 Hazeltine
National Dr.
Orlando, FL 32822
United States
+1 407-812-6736
www.pentaho.com

From the Company
“Founded in 2005, Pentaho tightly couples Data Integration with complete business analytics for Big Data,
supporting Hadoop, NoSQL, and Analytic databases. Pentaho provides a full Big Data Analytics solution that
supports the entire Big Data Analytics process from ETL and Data Integration to real-time analysis and Big Data
visualization.
Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) enables organizations to extract data from complex and heterogeneous
sources and create consistent, high quality information for critical business applications With a rich graphical
user interface and a parallel processing engine, PDI offers high performance ETL (extract, transform, and load)
that covers all Data Integration needs.”

Key Features
 Data Integration – Access, prepare, blend and deliver data from every source, including Hadoop, NoSQL,
Analytic, and relational sources. Their Visual MapReduce designer for Hadoop eliminates coding and
complexity
 Optimization – Leverage data from disparate sources including CRM and ERP systems, and with a
Hadoop cluster, offload less frequently used data from your existing data warehouse
 Integration – Accelerate access and integration to the latest versions and capabilities of big data stores,
and plug-ins to NoSQL databases such as Cassandra and MongoDB

Bottom Line
Pentaho Program is presented as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premise application. Pentaho offers
a pluggable open platform which provides analytics solutions, 100% Java, open standards-based
architecture. Its extendible platform provides the ability to launch the right analytics solution, as well as
adapt to future needs and requirements.

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Phocas
Phocas is a Business Intelligence software provider headquartered in
Coventry, England. Founded in 1999, Phocas has thousands of customers
across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. They
specialize in helping manufacturing, distribution and retail customers turn
company data into business insights. Their solution offers a cloud-based,
fully integrated suite of BI tools for organizations in several industries. The
solution works on any modern browser and can be used on any internetconnected mobile device.

Phocas
2020 House
Siskin Drive Coventry
CV3 4FJ
United Kingdom
+44 1865-364-103
phocassoftware.com

From the Company
“Designed for non-technical users, Phocas delivers a simple yet powerful analytical capability that quickly turns
data into a chart, graph or map. It brings up data in seconds on local, regional or global sales, inventory,
forecasts, prices, profit margins, budgets and more. Phocas enables you to carry out ad-hoc data interrogation
or associate and consolidate data, identify trends, conduct modeling and stay ahead of the competition.
Phocas integrates with all major ERP and CRM programs to give you a quick start that can be customized to
your specific needs. Our governed implementation and business-based user security provide the solutions to
let you and your IT staff stay productive and dedicated to your core business. Phocas also brings you the
ability to combine transactional and geospatial data on an easy to view map. Phocas has a marvelous 98%
customer retention rate and ranks #1 in G2 Crowd, #1 in CrowdReviews and #1 BARC BI survey.”

Key Features
 Dashboards – Non-technical people can quickly build an interactive dashboard, customize, apply
permissions, collaborate, revise and print on the spot without help from IT
 Data Analytics – Dig into a consolidated view of your actual product, customer and financial data
 Reporting – Schedule your report alerts and distribution. Choose your preferred delivery method, share
reports inside and outside of your organization

Bottom Line
Phocas provides a wide array of BI functions including dashboards, scorecards, data mining, ETL (extract,
transform, load), OLAP (omline analytical processing), and data warehousing. The platform offers users the
ability to view data from many perspectives. The solution has excellent customer reviews due to overall
flexibility and vendor responsiveness.

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Prognoz
A privately held company, Prognoz develops BI software. Their all-purpose
solution derives value from your data, and includes built-in tools for its
collection. It offers financial, material, and HR management, model crisis
situations, and marketing research capabilities. Information is accessible
in real-time via your mobile device or PC, and provides the availability to
explore historical data within the same platform.

Prognoz
54 Stakhanovskaya St.
Russia
+7 342 240 36 63
www.prognoz.com

From the Company
“Prognoz is Russian for forecast. We chose the name because we're dedicated to helping organizations
prepare for the future. Since 1991 we've done this through our Business Intelligence (BI) applications that
feature analytics, multi-dimensional data cubes and robust econometric forecasting tools. In the clipped pace
of the Information Age, our tools help users distill raw data quickly and accurately from a multitude of sources,
resulting in sound decisions and money saved.
Prognoz Platform is fully integrated Business Intelligence (BI) platform that provides easy-to-use tools for
developing BI solutions with a broad range of analytic capabilities for desktop, Web, and new emerging
technological trends, including mobile devices and cloud architecture.”

Key Features
 Dashboards – Offers a wide range of interchangeable visualizations including charts, maps, speedometer
gauges, and spreadsheets
 Data Portal – Access data in the cloud on national and global economies, and search, visualize, and data.
Also provides automatic daily data updates
 E-Office – Access information on current business status and future development, as well as industry,
country, and regional economy status, all accessible through PC or mobile device

Bottom Line
Prognoz is a cross-platform application server (Windows and Linux). Prognoz offers on-premise or cloud,
where data will be stored on their centralized data warehouse or on your existing infrastructure.

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Pyramid Analytics
Pyramid Analytics delivers a Governed Data Discovery and Enterprise
Business Analytics platform that includes little coding or complexity. Their
web-deployed solution is built with centralized security and content, and
can be easily scaled and distributed throughout as many servers as
needed. Up until recently, it has been Microsoft-centric, but has begun to
expand. Based in the Netherlands, Pyramid works as an International
company and caters to businesses both large and small.

Pyramid Analytics BV
Jollenmanhof 22
1019GW Amsterdam
Netherlands
+1 (203) 202-3500
www.pyramidanalytics.com

From the Company
“Disruptors and innovators at heart, Pyramid Analytics has developed the BI Office Suite to revolutionize the
way all users access, visualize, and present their data.
Our mission at Pyramid Analytics is to deliver a Governed Data Discovery and Enterprise Business Analytics
platform that gives the power of analytics into the hands of every user, from expert analyst to business
executive to IT professional.
The BI Office Suite is architected with centralized security and content in addition to being able scale up and
out effortlessly, load balanced over as many servers as required. Organizations can improve their business
performance by utilizing BI Office, which offers the flexibility and innovation of user-driven data discovery with
the horsepower, efficiency, and manageability required for an enterprise.”

Key Features
 Data Discovery – Self-service options for performance queries, and allows you to explore and share
insights. Also provides intuitive visualizations, custom parameterizations, and calculations
 Dashboards – Interactive, accessible visualizations with point-and-click design, divisible KPIs, and the
ability to optimize direction and resources
 Mash-Pit Wizard – Unifies all of your disparate data, and analyzes it together for the whole picture. The
Wizard guides you to easily access, input, and employ disparate data

Bottom Line
BI Office integrates allows users can now analyze, present, report and predict on their data in a single
application. BI Office gives a full enterprise BI framework offering enterprise class security, sharing of
business logic, and access to a ‘single source of the truth’ for all users.

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Qlik (Thoma Bravo)
Qlik, previously known as QlikTech, was founded in Sweden, but has since
relocated its headquarters to Pennsylvania. Their BI solution helps to turn
your data into insights across your business. It can also be tailored to your
business’s function and industry (i.e. public sector, life sciences,
communications, high tech, etc.) for simplified customization. As it does
not require a data warehouse, you can incorporate all of your data into
their indexed data engine, or use your existing investments.

Qlik
150 N. Radnor Chester Rd.
Radnor, PA 19087
United States
+1 888-828-9768
www.qlik.com

From the Company
“Qlik was founded in Sweden in 1993. Qlik’s product portfolio includes Qlik Sense and QlikView, which enable
organizations to explore data and discover insights empowering critical decision making with a deep
understanding and awareness into all facets of an organization.
Qlik Sense and QlikView are comprehensive, self-service and user-centric business intelligence platforms
providing powerful business analytics through easy to use drag-and-drop data visualizations. These
visualizations are interactive, real-time, data integration from multiple, huge data sources and can be shared on
the go and across multiple devices, enabling each user to see the organization’s whole story in a quick, visual
format.”

Key Features
 QlikView – Helps to build guided analytics applications and maintain control of apps, permissions, and
data management
 Qlik Analytics Platform – Create visualizations to make dashboards and applications through and OEM
platform. Their Associative Indexing Engine (QIX) helps you to build your own solutions, which is the same
core engine used to build Qlik products
 Qlik DataMarket – Augment and cross-reference your internal data via external sources to add greater
context, and look at data from a variety of sources to get a better understanding of your business

Bottom Line
QlikView is presented as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) self-service BI, where they can be deployed onpremise or in the cloud. QlikView has connectors for Cloudera, Informatica, JD Edwards, Oracle, Salesforce,
SAP and Teradata.

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SAP
SAP’s BI platform offers a broad range of products to assist with reporting,
self-service data visualization and dashboards, predictive analytics, and
mobile apps. It can to help increase responsiveness and reduce IT costs,
and allows you to leverage your BI in real-time from anywhere. Increase
user autonomy by laying out data in simple terms, and benefit from its
flexible and scalable information infrastructure, all encompassed in one
unified BI infrastructure.

SAP SE
Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16
69190 Walldorf
Germany
+49 (0) 6227 / 7-47474
www.sap.com

From the Company
“Founded in 1972, SAP is the market and technology leader in business management software, solutions,
services for improving your business process. The company's best-known software products are its enterprise
resource planning application systems.
SAP BusinessObjects™ Integration software provides directs connectivity to enterprise applications. This
enables you to consolidate and transform vast amounts of data into reports, analyses, visualizations, and
dashboards while helping ensure data security and compliance. With SAP BusinessObjects Integration, your
organization can leverage single business intelligence (BI) solution for better-informed, faster decision making
and business performance optimization.”

Key Features
 Lifecycle Management – Manage, configure, and audit a BI deployment from a central console. Its unified
environment frees up your IT personnel to stay on top of your ever-evolving business
 Platform Administration – Manage your BI content across development, testing, and production lifecycles.
Share information more fluidly both in and out of your organization
 BusinessObjects – Supports distribution of personalized content (up to 1 million users) through an
automated process. Shares documents via email or allows you to send them to destinations such as the
BI launch pad, a printer, or a portal for further collaboration while maintaining content security

Bottom Line
Data Integrator delivers ETL scalability with support for parallel processing, grid computing, real-time data
movement, and broad source and target support. This open and services-based architecture allows you to
integrate with third-party products using industry standard protocols such as CWM, XML, HTTP/HTTPS, JMS,
SNMP, and Web services.

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SAS
A multinational software corporation based in Germany, SAP offers a
comprehensive BI solutions that may be used with Hadoop, data
warehouses, or Microsoft spreadsheets. Their platform can create
interactive reports and easily distribute them throughout the web, mobile
devices, and Microsoft applications using their Office Analytics. SAS’s
solution is accessible through cloud (including the SAS cloud) as well as
on-site.

SAS Institute, Inc.
100 SAS Campus Drive
Cary, NC 27513-2414
United States
+1 919-677-8000
www.sas.com

From the Company
“SAS once stood for "statistical analysis system," and began at North Carolina State University as a project to
analyze agricultural research. As demand for such software grew, SAS was founded in 1976 to help all sorts of
customers - from pharmaceutical companies and banks to academic and governmental entities.
SAS Enterprise BI Server is a comprehensive business intelligence software solution that integrates the power
of SAS Analytics and SAS Data Management to provide insights that power better decisions. It includes rolebased, self-service interfaces for all types of users within an IT governance framework and a centralized point
of administration.”

Key Features
 Visualization – Provides data visualization and guided analysis through auto-charting, as well as an
assortment of techniques for you to present your data and results in an aesthetically pleasing way
 Power to Know – Gain insights rapidly regardless of location using their mobile capabilities. This allows
you to access and explore dashboards and reports from tablets and smartphones remotely at any time,
even without an Internet connection
 Text Sentiment Analysis – Offers insight into social media topics (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics,
etc) and other text data, and then determines whether the sentiment is positive or negative

Bottom Line
SAS is presented as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and its SAS Enterprise BI Server provides grid-enabled,
load-balanced, multit-threaded parallel processing architecture. Their solution also supports zero data
movement by using SQL pass-through into popular database appliances, including Oracle, DB2, Teradata,
Netezza, SQL Server, Aster and Hadoop.

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Sisense
Sisense is a business analytics software company with offices in New York
City, Phoenix, Tokyo and Tel Aviv. Their BI solution gives you a simple way
to analyze complex data, defined as large datasets from multiple disparate
sources, with little to no help from IT. You can use built-in connectors to
join data from multiple sources and formats, such as spreadsheets, cloud
sources, data warehouses, information from a CRM, etc. Sisense is sold as
a single-stack solution with a backend for preparing and modeling data,
and a front end for dashboarding and visualization.

Sisense, Inc.
88 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
United States
+1 646-432-1507
www.sisense.com

From the Company
“Founded in 2004, Sisense is an innovative business intelligence (BI) software company that is leading the way
into a new era of business intelligence, reporting, dashboarding and business analytic. Sisense is full-stack
Business Intelligence and Analytics software that lets non-techies join multiple large data sets, build smart
dashboards with great data visualizations, and share with thousands of users.
Sisense is changing business analytics forever by simplifying complex data preparation, analysis and
visualization – giving unprecedented power to businesses without the need for cumbersome and expensive IT
investments.”

Key Features
 Data Preparation – Lets you create and manage data models from multiple sources in a simple drag and
drop environment
 Interactive Analytics – With interactive dashboards, explore all your data from any angle and at any
granularity to rapidly glean insights
 Unique Technology and Data Engine – Sisense is built using the company’s In-Chip technology, which
enables the tool to provide fast performance while eliminating traditional steps of preparing complex data
such as aggregations, OLAP cubes, etc

Bottom Line
Sisense offers on-premise and cloud-based solutions. The product runs on In-Chip technology, providing a
solution for agile analysis when working with complex data, with minimal additional IT investment. Due to its
unique technology and emphasis on end-user experience, Sisense can help organizations that have large
amounts of data from multiple sources achieve fast time-to-insight and ROI from their analytics.

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Tableau
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Tableau offers a series of
interactive data visualization products within the business intelligence
spectrum. Their solution caters to individual industries to help be as
specific as needed, and provides optimized direct connections for highperformance databases, cubes, Hadoop, and cloud data sources (i.e.
Salesforce and Google Analytics). Their dashboard software is one of its
strengths and provides the ability to combine multiple data sources.

Tableau Software
837 North 34th Street
Seattle, WA 98103
United States
+1 206-633-3400
www.tableausoftware.com

From the Company
“Put together an Academy-Award winning professor, a brilliant computer scientist and a savvy business leader
with a passion for data. Add in one of the most challenging problems in software - making databases and
spreadsheets understandable to ordinary people. You have just recreated the fundamental ingredients for
Tableau.
Tableau provides a Business Intelligence platform that equips anyone to analyze data quickly. Its intuitive user
interface means there’s no need for canned reports, dashboard widgets, or templates to get started. Tableau’s
Business Intelligence platform provides a fast, easy way to make visual analytics available to everyone. Its
range of capabilities, from mobile BI to analyzing Big Data means Tableau offers a full list of capabilities that
allow you to create visual analysis that yields actionable insight. Tableau’s product portfolio includes Tableau
Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online, Tableau Public and Vizable.”

Key Features
 Self-Reliant Analysis – Provides drag & drop, point & click construction of dashboards, charts, and reports,
none of which require users with extensive IT knowledge
 Dashboards – Allows you to create interactive, real-time dashboards on their server, or through their
online platform, and then embed them into wikis, corporate portals, or any webpage
 VizQL – Translates drag & drop actions into data queries and presents it visually to help users better see
and understand the information

Bottom Line
Tableau’s Business Intelligence solution is offered on-premise and in the cloud. Tableau builds on two data
platforms – Tableau Online and Tableau Public. System requirements include: Microsoft Windows Server, 32bit or 64-bit version of Windows, a minimum of Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Opteron processor, and Internet
Protocol version 4 and 6.

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TARGIT
Headquartered in Denmark, TARGIT’s provides a single, integrated BI
platform, and offers visual data discovery tools, self-service business
analytics, reporting, and dashboards. Their solution assists with employee
communication, as well as synchronization of your departments, systems,
and software. It provides an expansive range of deployment options and
enables users to create their own reports and analyses. Additionally,
TARGIT supports data sources through the Microsoft Analytics Platform
System.

Targit
Aalborgvej 94
9800 Hjørring
Denmark
+45 96 23 19 00
www.targit.com

From the Company
“TARGIT was founded in 1986, from the very beginning; we developed and sold Business Management
Systems. While starting out as a software company providing applications to the retail and oil business, we
quickly realized the overwhelming need for analytical processing tools that could help management in day-today decision-making and action taking. The first version of the TARGIT Business Intelligence technology was
launched during spring of 1996.
TARGIT Decision Suite is a full-fledged Business Intelligence & Analytics solution. With TARGIT Decision Suite,
you combine and analyze data from different data sources. TARGIT is also used for analyzing big data from
e.g. Google Analytics, analyzing passengers boarding planes, monitoring call centers, reporting hardware
resource usage in a datacenter and monitoring.”

Key Features
 Decision Suite – Offers visual data discovery tools, self-service business analytics, reporting, and
dashboards in one solution
 Dashboards – Allows you align your business around the same goals with real-time Insight to your KPIs to
ensure strategic decisions and operations
 Data Mashup – Combine internal revenue data with industry revenue data to see if they’re gaining market
using sources with out-of-the-box connectors to CSV, Excel, Google Docs, or Twitter

Bottom Line
TARGIT’s Business Intelligence solution is offered on-premise and in the cloud through TARGIT Self-Service.
TARGIT BI builds on Microsoft SQL Server database, so Microsoft SQL Server with the following components
is required: Relational Database Engine, Microsoft Analysis Services (UDM), Microsoft Integration Services
and SQL Server Agent.

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TIBCO
An American company, TIBCO provides a BI solution that includes
integration, analytics, and events processing software, and can be used
on-premise or through the cloud. They offer two additional solutions,
Spotfire and Jaspersoft, which provide advanced analytic capabilities and
reporting, respectively. Tibco’s Fast Data Platform can integrate data
coming from your applications, systems, customers, etc. to provide realtime awareness.

TIBCO Spotfire
212 Elm Street
Somerville, MA 02144
United States
+1 617-702-1600
spotfire.tibco.com

From the Company
“The TIBCO platform is unique in its ability to seek, understand, and respond to real-time events. This provides
comprehensive visibility into trends and opportunities, as well as the intelligence and agility to recognize and
instantly react to key events – capturing opportunities and averting risks within ever-shortening time frames.
The TIBCO platform is uniquely suited to transform your business into an event-enabled enterprise, so you can
meet the challenges of the 21st century. With the power of real-time event processing and insightful analytics,
the TIBCO platform enables you to achieve the Two-Second AdvantageTM.”

Key Features
 Integration – Creates differentiated business value to data, and assists in understanding, anticipating, and
acting upon opportunities and threats in real time
 Event Processing – Captures, aggregates, and analyzes real-time and historical data. Monitors and
leverages event streams from any device, logs, and applications
 Cloud – Offers a scalable, enterprise-class solution to deliver on-demand, and optimizes the utilization of
your resources across your business platforms

Bottom Line
TIBCO Spotfire offers on-premises or cloud-based solutions. TIBCO Application Data Services (ADS)
Supported Data Sources and Protocols are Apache Hive 0.7.0/Hadoop 0.17.x to 0.20.x, Data Direct
Mainframe, File (cache, delimited, and XML), Greenplum v3.3 HP Neoview 2.3, 2.4 IBM DB2 v8 and more.

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Yellowfin
Yellowfin is a global Business Intelligence and Data Analytics software
vendor that provides reporting from data stored in relational databases,
multi-dimensional cubes or in-memory analytical databases. The company
was founded in 2003 in response to the complexity and costs associated
with implementing and using traditional BI tools. Yellowfin is 100 percent
web-based and also offers mobile BI, collaborative BI and Embedded
Analytics, as well as location intelligence and data visualizations. They
currently have tens of thousands of clients in more than 70 countries.

Yellowfin
Level 46
360 Elizabeth Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia
+61 2-8404-4150
yellowfinbi.com

From the Company
“At Yellowfin, we are passionate about making Business Intelligence easy. And by easy, we mean easy for
everyone. Yellowfin has been developed to satisfy a range of BI needs – from small businesses, to massive
enterprise deployments and software vendors. The catalyst for Yellowfin was years spent working with, and
being frustrated by, the cost and complexity of traditional BI tools. With extensive field experience in delivering
BI to real people, we have a deep understanding of the everyday problems faced by businesses like yours.
We work closely with our clients to better understand their needs – and we continue to improve with every new
release. Thanks to input from our amazing customers, Yellowfin is more than just highly interactive
dashboards and intuitive data visualizations. We’re the leaders in mobile BI, collaborative BI and location
intelligence.”

Key Features
 Dashboards – Users can view all of their data sources on a single dashboard with high level summary
reports and KPIs
 Data Visualization – Interactive visualizations allow users to explore data by adding options, such as drilldowns, time-sliders or series selection
 Collaborative BI – Disseminate reports, dashboards and storyboards and distribute, export and email BI
content

Bottom Line
Yellowfin has high customer ratings in ease of use and feature functionality. Additionally, their solution acts
as a viable option for users who want to deploy BI in the cloud. The prominent use case for Yellowfin is
embedded BI, and the tool offers a completely web-based interface. Yellowfin BI features leading capabilities
for collaboration and social sharing as well.

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Business Intelligence
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About Solutions Review:
Solutions Review is a collection of technology news sites that aggregates, curates and creates the best
content within leading technology categories. Solutions Review mission is connect buyers of enterprise
technology with the best solution sellers.
Over the past four years, Solutions Review has launched ten tech Buyer's Guide sites in categories ranging
from Cybersecurity to Wireless 802.11ac as well as Business Intelligence, Data Analytics, Data Integration
and Data Management.
Information for this report was gathered via a meta-analysis of available online materials and reports, conversations with vendor
representatives, and examinations of product demonstrations and free trials. Solutions Review does not endorse any vendor, product
or service depicted in this publication and does not advise technology users to base their vendor selection entirely on this research.
Solutions Review disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, regarding this research, including any warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose.

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