The business intelligence community has made much of its ability to transform the way enterprises operate, and even the way the world works. Open source takes this to the next level, as OStatic recently described. And yet, as exciting as open-source business intelligence is, it's not what gets me out of bed every morning before sunrise. What drove me out of bed to climb 2,474 feet on my mountain bike this morning is the personal intelligence movement or, more accurately, the personal data movement.
The data behind my morning ride
It used to be that the more ambitious among us managed our time and goals with a Franklin day planner. "Goal: Lose 20 pounds. Run five miles each day. Etc."
Today, with our iPhone strapped to our arm or thrown into our Camelback, we're still managing our goals but the data feedback is unforgiving, instantaneous, and deeply motivating. Lose It!, for example, is a phenomenal weight-loss tool. I've mostly been using it to maintain my preferred weight, but I've watched my good friend Bryce Roberts melt away 30-plus pounds while getting into the best biking shape he's ever been in.
Not that Runkeeper hasn't helped. Both Bryce and I use it to track our mountain bike rides. Using the iPhone's built-in GPS capabilities, Runkeeper tracks my rides, calling out to me each mile what my pace has been, motivating me to ride harder. As if that weren't motivation enough, I have Runkeeper set to automatically post my times and workouts to Twitter: I often refuse to rest simply because I know my Twitter friends are going to pillory me if they see a weak pace.
This ability to minutely track my exercise and diet regime so easily has literally changed my life, so much so that I've been exploring other areas that could be improved through data feedback and analysis.
One that I discovered over the weekend is Ego, which tracks Google Analytics statistics, Twitter follower counts, and more. I had already been tracking my statistics for this CNET blog on an hourly basis, for example, to see which posts were resonating and where, but Ego now gives me the ability to take that obsession on the road with me.
Given the recession, never before has it been more important that my wife and I manage to a budget. I've been a Wesabe user for a year or two now, and am just now starting to experiment with Wesabe on the iPhone. My wife, however, uses Mint, a similar service, which also is available on the iPhone.
I'm sure that such tools can be used to excess, but my experience thus far has been that they greatly improve the control I have over my life. These iPhone applications have helped me to track my progress against personal goals and, in so doing, have facilitated that progress.
Even as the Googles of the world get rich on the aggregation of our personal data, other companies like the makers of Runkeeper enriching our lives by making data personally useful and actionable. To make this happen, we simply needed mobile devices to be as powerful as they were ever-present with us.
Now that this has happened, there is no end to the possibilities our personal data affords us, especially as application providers find ways to allow us to mingle our data with others to drive enhanced value for both parties.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
This is a guest post by Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile. The views expressed are his own.
I know it's the dead of winter when Gartner releases its report "Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms." Since its release in mid-January, I've had some time to talk to a variety of colleagues and to think about its accuracy, and wanted to share some of my conclusions.
Gartner receives a lot of criticism about these reports, especially from open-source vendors, but my views are mixed. I believe that this new report on business intelligence contains solid insight on what has transpired in the sector during the past year and about enterprise priorities for the coming year. This report is not helpful, though, in truly understanding the likely course of the next 12 months.
Gartner's Magic Quadrants, much like any report from a mature, established analyst firm, greatly understates the current and near-future impact of disruptive technologies. The market research firm's role is to appeal to the fat part of the bell curve, and this is where it missteps.
Because its criteria for inclusion on the business intelligence-focused Magic Quadrant chart focuses on the vendor achieving a minimum revenue threshold, not market penetration or customer adoption, the effect of open-source products is hugely understated.
Of course, open-source business intelligence (like many other software categories in which open source is fast-growing) is having an enormous impact in both large and small customer environments. And, more importantly, the simplicity and innovation being delivered by the modern open-source code bases are allowing business intelligence to reach new customers and audiences largely forsaken by the established, proprietary vendors. This modern approach provides a critical appeal to the shifting workforce demographics in most of the large economies.
More than ever, software will be transformed this year, and open-source adoption will remain aggressive, even in the current tough economy. Simply put, enterprise information systems will require a simpler, more consumer-oriented approach to appeal to the younger generation of up-and-coming workers, a concept Gartner and I refer to as "the consumerization of information."
The facts are clear: the evolving workforce and its expectations for software, which will drastically transform software development and usage--especially in the enterprise software market--is under way. As the aging workforce in the largest economies continues to retire (in the United States, it's the baby boomer generation), and more young workers enter and climb higher, we'll see a widening "expectation gap" between the anticipated behavior of enterprise applications and their actual behavior.
Younger workers have grown up with computers and, by and large, the Internet. They've never been "unconnected." Therefore, their expectations for how software systems should behave are vastly different from those of an older worker who has grown into computers and software during the course of his career.
Software vendors designing products that work according to the new Web principles will fare far better with this younger generation of workers. Those that do not will become less relevant.
While Gartner's report mentions the consumerization of information, it does nothing to illustrate the full impact this trend is already having on the software industry and the ensuing disruption open-source software will present. At best, this makes the Magic Quadrant a lagging indicator and at worst, inaccurate.
Contributed by Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile. The views expressed are his own. (But if you like them, I'll take credit. :-))
Read more about Gentile's positions on open source and business intelligence at his blog: The Open Book on BI.
As we navigate the second year of a global recession, enterprises need to be looking for ways to optimize existing infrastructure. Sure, new IT projects will bring in additional technologies, an increasing percentage of which will be open source and software as a service, but the pressure is on to do more with less.
Hyperic, an open-source systems management company, just released a new service--Hyperic Operations IQ--in partnership with open-source Business Intelligence vendor JasperSoft, which promises to do just that.
Hyperic isn't taking any chances on the integration with Jasper server, either: the company hired JasperSoft's ex-chief technology officer, Barry Klawans, to lead development on the integrated product.
I normally don't care much about product announcements, as this blog is more about strategy than technology. But I like what Hyperic Operations IQ promises: a tool that gives IT executives and business managers the same insight into IT performance and Web operations as highly technical system administrators. In other words, Hyperic and JasperSoft are lowering the bar to systems management utility.
As Javier Soltero, Hyperic's founder and CEO, declares:
For companies who are dependent on Web technologies, access to data center and application performance metrics is a critical strategic weapon that should not be limited to the IT and operations teams. Service-level interruptions or downtime can have serious implications to a company's bottom line.
With Hyperic Operations IQ, our customers can see everything that's happening in their data centers at every level of the stack. They'll be able to make better and timelier decisions to support their customers and strengthen their businesses.
This is a smart business move. Why? Because the more people within its customer base that Hyperic can invite into its product experience, the more support it will have at renewal or upgrade time. Making systems management an executive affair is shrewd and should pay dividends.
Disclosure: I am an adviser to JasperSoft.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
In a week that saw open-source ERP vendor Openbravo pull in its millionth download and SugarCRM taking it to Salesforce at its DreamForce Conference, it seems that momentum is growing for open-source applications.
Highlighting this apparent trend, Actuate, an open-source Business Intelligence vendor, has announced version 10 of its product, as well as significant momentum to go with it, as the Actuate team discussed with me by phone:
- Over five million downloads in the past three years;
- $8 million in revenue last year and $10.5 million in the first nine months of 2008. Despite the slowing economy, Actuate has maintained its forecast that it will double its open source-related revenue to $16 million in 2008;
- Actuate is doing particularly well with OEMs, with S1 and Cisco;
- Actuate's BIRT Exchange community site now averages roughly 30,000 visits per month, with just under 10,000 registered users in just under a year.
- Actuate closes deals with roughly one percent of its overall developer community. But its success rate with opportunities coming from the BIRT Exchange process is 50 percent, with these commercial downloads/trials increasing roughly 50 percent per quarter.
It's this last data point that perhaps points to the most important trend for Actuate. Eclipse.org is the open-source site for the Eclipse BIRT project, but Actuate is already seeing its more enterprise-focused BIRT site (BIRT Exchange) surpass the Eclipse side, indicating strong commercial interest in Actuate's open-source BIRT product.
Actuate 10 makes BIRT ready for any type of deployment, in terms of security, scale, etc. This means that Actuate is ready to go head-to-head against the big proprietary offerings like Crystal. Now that it has a model for reaching developers and prospective commercial buyers, Actuate appears to be well-positioned to accelerate monetization of its products through an economic downturn.
Disclosure: I am an advisor to JasperSoft, an open-source competitor to Actuate. I am also an advisor to Openbravo and SugarCRM.
Life sounds sunny for Florida-based Pentaho, a leading open-source Business Intelligence vendor. The company just announced a string of big-name customer wins, including Delta Dental, Mozilla, and a $1 million deal with a "major European retailer."
The company also announced that Lars Nordwall, former head of Sales for SugarCRM, has joined as senior vice president of Business Development. I know and like Lars and think he'll be a great fit for Pentaho. It's also a chance for him to work on his tan this winter, since the Bay Area is so cold.... :-)
Lastly, Pentaho has added Zack Urlocker to its board. Zack is the vice president of Products within Sun's database group and one of the best people I've ever known. Having him on board the Pentaho bus is excellent news.
I suspect some of Pentaho's go-go growth will slow with the US economy, but with these improvements to its team it's well-positioned to weather the storm and come out on top.
Disclosure: I am an advisor to JasperSoft, an open-source competitor to Pentaho.
Pentaho has released its Pentaho BI (Business Intelligence) Platform under the GNU General Public License, Version 2. What does this mean?
Specifically, the Platform engine core, Platform engine services, Platform engine security, Platform repository, and UI foundation will be changed to the GPLv2 license. Going forward, Pentaho will require third-parties who want to contribute code to these components to release that code under the GPL license.
This is a bold move by Pentaho, one that brings all (or virtually all) of its software under an open-source license.
It's a move that would be easier to ignore if Pentaho weren't simultaneously announcing big-name customers like Delta Dental, which Pentaho won at SAP's expense.
The reason? Delta Dental found that it could "achieve their business goals more quickly while reducing their costs" with Pentaho's open-source solution. Smart move, Delta Dental, and great work, Pentaho.
And things were going so well, too.
On the day that JasperSoft proclaimed itself the king of Business Intelligence with 8,000 paid customers and 80,000 active deployments, I found out that Barry Klawans, its CTO, had left the company. When I asked him why he had left, he responded that he had "left simply to unwind, no reflection on the company at all."
Fair enough. After 25 years of relentless startup life, it's not surprising that he'd want to revisit his family and life. (I'd recommend skiing in Utah. We got another two feet last week. :-)
As for JasperSoft, I also talked with a Business Objects executive today who mentioned that he never sees JasperSoft, Pentaho, or Actuate in any of his accounts or sales opportunities. To this I responded, "It's just a matter of time." Fortunately for him, he'll get a reprieve from Barry for awhile. :-)
Best of luck to Barry in whatever you choose to do, my friend.
Disclosure: I am an advisor to JasperSoft.
I recently caught up with Brian Gentile, JasperSoft's new CEO, to get his take on the rampant industry consolidation in the Business Intelligence world, where JasperSoft competes. I also asked him about his favorite open-source software (shouldn't have, as you'll see :-) and whether open-source interoperability is a "must have" for his customers.
With more than 2.5 million downloads worldwide and more than 7,000 commercial customers in 96 countries, JasperSoft is on a roll. But with Pentaho getting $12 million more in funding, there's no easy sailing for JasperSoft. I wanted to see how Brian was planning to navigate the difficult dynamics of his industry.
Q: You joined JasperSoft just a couple of months ago. What have you been working on?
BG: Well, I've been on the JasperSoft board for more than two years, so I came to the table in many ways ready to go. I think JasperSoft's opportunity is in its ability to offer choice and flexibility in a market where customers are facing the realities of hegemony: fewer choices, higher costs and little innovation. It's true that choice and flexibility are inherent features of open-source software, but in the BI market, where consolidation is at an all-time high, it's more relevant than ever.
... Read more
If there was an open question as to which venture capital firm is the king of open source, Benchmark just settled that question with its most recent investment in Pentaho, a leading open-source Business Intelligence company. Not surprisingly, Peter Fenton is behind the deal.
Pentaho competes with other open-source BI companies like JasperSoft and Actuate (and I suppose Greenplum, too, in a way), but the more interesting competition is the big proprietary vendors (Business Objects, Cognos, etc.) and the net new opportunities bringing BI to the masses.
It will be intriguing to see how this investment pans out for Benchmark. The firm has so many eggs in the open-source basket that it will either (continue to) win big (Red Hat, Zimbra, MySQL, etc.), or lose big. My bet is on the former outcome.
Who do you want to buy from today? Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, or SAP? Those are pretty much the only choices left, now that IBM has announced its acquisition of Cognos for $4.9 billion.
The deal has long been expected, given that IBM had to play catch-up with Oracle and SAP, both of whom have gone on the business intelligence buying binge in the past year. The Cognos acquisition should work financially for IBM by giving it economies of scale in the sales process.
But what does it give customers? One less choice. That is, unless they opt for open source, which opens up the playing field considerably. JasperSoft, Pentaho, Actuate, Greenplum, and others offer choice in business intelligence. It will be interesting to see if someone snaps one up at the "low-end" of the market.
