Simba Technologies' CEO Corner

The MDX Query Language

I came across an interesting blog by Dejan Sarka http://blogs.solidq.com/EN/dsarka/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=871e778d%2D7617%2D45b7%2Da6ce%2D7b8215ed5aea&ID=111, where he talks about the MDX Language. Dejan’s theme is that the “MDX Language is Underestimated” and that “it is time for advanced BI implementers to learn MDX.” I agree with Dejan in that there is a lot of potential for people to write their own MDX queries directly against products like Microsoft Analysis Services, or SAP NetWeaver BI (SAP BW). I especially think that there is an opportunity for SAP customers to do more with BW. SAP seems to be making it easier to do this, and it has been investing heavily in its MDX capabilities within BW. SAP’s SDN www.sdn.sap.com is a good source of information and a place to ask for assistance. Also, George Spofford’s book “MDX Solutions” http://www.amazon.com/MDX-Solutions-Microsoft-Analysis-Services/dp/0471748080/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204305023&sr=1-1 is probably the best source of MDX information out there today.

Newer Data Warehouse Appliance Players

The article entitled “BI Industry Outlook: Busy and Bright” by Stephen Swoyer http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8813 is an interesting read. Stephen talks about the partnership between Teradata and SAS, which was announced last year in October at Teradata’s Annual Partners Conference. Stephen gives more details about the partnership and what is being achieved five months since the original announcement.

Stephen also goes on to talk about “a surprising number of start-up or smaller vendors -- companies such as InfoBright Inc., Kognitio Inc. (the former WhiteCross, which makes its U.S. debut early this year), ParAccel, and Vertica, among others.” When you add these on top of companies like Netezza and HP and also include companies like SAP with its Business Intelligence Accelerator (BIA), you see how hot an area this is. Definitely a space to watch.

IBM and Cognos

Now that Cognos is part of IBM, I am curious what IBM’s strategy is. Stephen Swoyer wrote an interesting article on the future of IBM and Cognos, which you can read here: http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8800. Interestingly, in the article he writes:

"What IBM is marketing, Mills said, isn't information integration snake oil, but an information-on-demand vision that puts the right information (including analytic insights) in the dashboards, reports, or pie charts of business decision makers. IBM plans to do that by yoking the Cognos BI and PM technologies to its more explicit middleware assets, offering decision makers what Mills touted as a 'complete end-to-end set of capabilities.'"

This to me is an interesting part of the three big BI acquisitions of last year in Performance Management (PM). I think Oracle bought Hyperion because it was the leader in the PM pace. Even though Hyperion was smaller than either Business Objects or Cognos, Hyperion definitely had a lead in PM. Microsoft buying ProClarity and then releasing Performance Point Server, and SAP first buying Outlooksoft and then buying Business Objects (which had previously bought Cartesis) shows clearly that everyone feels PM is important. IBM and Cognos don’t have a lot of overlapping products, so I expect their integration will happen very quickly. The positioning of the combined IBM/Cognos around PM is worth watching.

SAP and Business Objects

Since Simba is known for our data connectivity expertise, I get a lot of questions about how various products integrate.  Right now a hot topic is the integration of SAP and Business Objects.  Ingo Hilgefort of Business Objects has some good information on his blog that is worth a read: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/8560.