ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (128)

Microsoft Hopes for a Miracle with Windows Phone 7

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

Mobile computing isn’t new anymore. The capabilities of smartphones, among other things, enable businesses to run applications across an enterprise and workers to collaborate across business and social networks. In this endeavor Microsoft was early to market with its Windows CE devices that provided e-mail and Web browsing to phones. For the first years it was a low-level battle among Microsoft,... Read More

Topics: Microsoft, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Mobile Technology, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Mobility, Digital Technology

Saba Dedicates Itself to People and Collaboration

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual user conference in Boston, Saba provided insights to industry analysts on its progress over the last year and its direction for 2011. Best known for its learning management system (LMS), collaboration and more recently its talent management applications, Saba now has more than 19 million users in 1,400 customer organizations that are mostly in the public sector, have 5,000 or more... Read More

Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Learning, Mobile Applications, Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Saba, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

Happy BIRT Day

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

Actuate held its annual customer day in San Francisco amid the happy chaos of the World Series champion Giants’ ticker-tape celebration, and on that day the company’s ticker symbol changed from ACTU to BIRT (a shift, incidentally, botched by NASDAQ). There was a great deal of focus on its ActuateOne platform (which my colleague reviewed here) and the advancements in using open source software... Read More

Topics: Microsoft, Open Source Software, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Information Management, Microsoft Excel, Spreadsheets

IBM Makes InfoSphere Information Server a Force in IT

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

In the weeks leading up to and as part of its Information On Demand Conference that my colleague assessed, IBM introduced version 8.5 of InfoSphere Information Server and several related product updates. As my colleague suggested earlier, IBM has an ambitious agenda to provide comprehensive information management capabilities through a combination of product development and acquisitions. The... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Data Integration, IBM, Information Management, Information Technology

Teradata Advances Analytics across the Board

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

The battle for business analytics rages on. IBM, Oracle, SAP and SAS as billion dollar and larger companies each combine analytic computation and processing in the underlying data but Teradata remains a key player. For its part Teradata used its annual Partners conference to tout the next generation of analytics in its product portfolio and brought along customers to testify to their success in... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, Teradata, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Information Management, Information Technology

Plateau Brings Mobility to Talent Management and Simplifies Applications

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its 2010 user conference in Miami, Plateau Systems reviewed for analysts its progress in the market for talent management software. Plateau has a unified platform and suite of applications that cover learning, compensation, job performance and analytics. The company’s financials have been steadily growing as more customers adopt its platform and show good year-to-year growth in its... Read More

Topics: Learning, Performance, Plateau, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

IBM Brings Business Analytics and Information Management to Center Stage

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

This year IBM joined its annual Information on Demand conference with the new IBM Business Analytics Forum. Some 10,000 attendees came to learn about managing information assets using analytics for business, and the value of integrating business intelligence (BI) with information assets across the enterprise. All these topics are relevant, as large organizations have created thousands of silos... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, IBM, Information Management

Corporations Must Manage Taxes More Intelligently

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

For the past couple of years I’ve been asserting that most larger companies (those with 1,000 or employees) need to adopt a new approach to using software to handle their taxes comprehensively, both the direct sort (income taxes) and the indirect variety (sales and use taxes as well as value-added or goods and services taxes). This is a necessary response to an emerging challenge from more... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Enterprise Tax, Tax Software, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, Corporate Finance, Financial Performance Management, International Finance

Cognos 10 Breaks Down Barriers To Business Intelligence and Analytics

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

On October 25, IBM introduced Cognos 10 at its Information on Demand and Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas that I attended to review the technology closer from my examination at its recent IBM Business Analytics analyst summit in September. According to Rob Ashe, IBM’s general manager of business analytics, Cognos 10 has been developed for over six years. You’re probably aware that in that... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, Performance Management, Planning, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, IBM, Information Management

Think Outside the Box when Investing in Salesforce Chatter

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog discussing salesforce.com (SFDC) Chatter and the buzz the technology is making in which one of my biggest questions was how a non-SFDC customer could justify purchasing Chatter. Well I finally got to speak with someone who has paid at least partially for Chatter. I say partially because this particular customer already has several hundred licenses with SFDC (which... Read More

Topics: Sales, Social Media, Social CRM, Customer Relationship Management, CIO, Collaboration, Operational Intelligence

Merced Systems’ European Event Showcases Best Practices and Customer Insights

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Merced Systems provides software to support performance management in both sales and service. Its products extract data from various systems to produce business-related reports, dashboards, scorecards and analysis that help companies improve performance in these two key functions. To further its efforts, Merced recently invited around 100 partners, customers and prospects to its 360 Degree... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Merced Systems, Operational Performance, Analytics

IBM Acquires Clarity Systems for More Financial Performance Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

IBM announced it has acquired Clarity Systems, a Toronto-based vendor of performance management software and consulting. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (My most recent blog and analysis about Clarity Systems can be found here. The acquisition fills an important hole in the IBM Cognos applications portfolio, as Clarity FSR is a leading application for automating and managing the... Read More

Topics: Clarity Systems, Financial Close, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Financial Performance Management

SuccessFactors Takes a Calculator into the Cloud?

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

SuccessFactors is known for applications in performance and talent management but has been working to expand its portfolio more broadly into business. This year the company expanded its focus to workforce analytics with the acquisition of Inform, which I assessed. I have assessed that Inform needed to improve the usability of its tools to compete better which is now more easily possible with a... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, SuccessFactors, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Talent Management

Qlik Here for My View of QlikView 10

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

My colleague recently wrote about QlikView, noting its rapid ascent to providing a very robust support of mobile technology platforms among BI vendors and integration with SAP. On the occasion of its release of a major product revision, QlikView 10, I’d like to add my perspective on the company and its most recent release. I first learned of QlikView about five years ago while working on the TM1... Read More

Topics: QlikView, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Information Management, Mobility

iWay Software Connects Salesforce Chatter to the Enterprise

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

It is not easy for businesses to make their operations more efficient, partly because their information systems do not provide notifications of events as they are happening. Most enterprise technology uses batch processing and is designed to move data from one database to another; otherwise it requires people to go and find the data they need. To be more responsive, new technologies capture and... Read More

Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Information Management

Putting Hadoop To Work

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

If you enjoyed my previous blog, “Hadoop Is the Elephant in the Room,” perhaps you’d be interested in what your organization might do with Hadoop. As I mentioned, the Hadoop World event this week showcased some of the biggest and most mature Hadoop implementations, such as those of eBay, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo. Those of you who need 8,500 processors and 16 petabytes of storage like eBay... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Information Management, Strata+Hadoop

Hadoop Is the Elephant in the Room

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Earlier this week I attended Hadoop World in New York City. Hosted by Cloudera, the one-day event was by almost all accounts a smashing success. Attendance was approximately double that of last year. There were five tracks filled mostly with user presentations. According to Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera, the conference’s tweet stream (#hw2010) was one of the top 10 trending topics of that morning.... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Information Management, Strata+Hadoop

HR Technology Conference Brings Insight to Opportunity

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

The annual HR Technology conference in Chicago provided a glimpse into the activities of HR organizations and their technology investments. It was a busy event with large attendance and much movement between sessions and the exhibit floor as attendees sought to learn more about the technology and what it can do for them. As always event organizers presented a large number of awards and... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Business Performance, Workforce Performance, HRMS, Talent Management

Longview FXR Automates Close-to-Report Cycle

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

With its FXR offering, Longview Solutions becomes the latest entrant into the market for software that automates the close-to-report cycle. Addressing the steps in the accounting cycle after the books are closed, the product assembles this accounting data, data from other sources (for example, management data such as a business segment breakout of revenues and operating profits or nonaccounting... Read More

Topics: Financial Close, LongView, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Financial Performance Management

Oracle Expands Its Playbook at OpenWorld

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual conference Oracle OpenWorld this year Oracle flexed its muscles as a technology giant. The company has been steadily growing through acquisitions to expand its database, middleware and applications, and the recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems gives it a way to sell hardware for servers and storage. This momentum is enabling Oracle to develop new streams of revenue, which were on... Read More

Topics: IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Enterprise Software, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology