infoTECH Feature

March 19, 2012

Cloud Computing, Open Source Among Business Intelligence Solutions for SMBs

Business Intelligence (BI) options now meet the needs for smaller and mid-size organizations, especially with hosting, cloud-based and open source alternatives.

According to new analysis, the move toward these options is seen in small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) – not just the larger enterprises.

“Storage is less expensive, processing times are quicker, and licensing and support is no longer a stumbling block to adoption due to the increase in subscription-based models,” said Lyndsay Wise of Wise Analytics. “Add this to hosted offerings and solutions that are developed targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and organizations now have something to work with.”

In the case of cloud computing, data as a service (DaaS) is appropriate for hosting big organizational data sets. Security and privacy control data access needs make DaaS a good alternative, too.

Also, more SMBs will look to others to provide them with data storage or analytics. The use of cloud computing offerings is similar, especially for many SMBs. The fee to house data externally becomes a fixed cost for the business, Wise said. Accessing data in the cloud could be expensive for SMBs. The smaller business needs to know any limitations up front, Wise adds. Also, she said that cloud-based business intelligence has given SMBs access to BI products that they would never have considered otherwise.

In addition, open source business intelligence is used by many organizations, especially smaller businesses. Open source is less expensive. Developers can customize solutions. But with SMBs, free source code is no longer enough because they often want to see differentiators for a solution.

With the Cloud, one plus is organizations don’t have to get lots of new hardware and software. An annual fee provides BI access. Businesses get started quickly and easily via open source, too.

In related BI news, Yardi Orion is now available for SharePoint, according to TMCnet. It is offered to Yardi Voyager clients. It provides business intelligence (about property management) and visibility into businesses. It is offered as Software as a Service.




Edited by Tammy Wolf
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