Business intelligence software

Business intelligence software is a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze, transform and report data for business intelligence. The applications generally read data that have been previously stored, often, though not necessarily, in a data warehouse or data mart.

History

The emergence of the Business Intelligence concept

The development of business intelligence software can be traced back to 1865. This was the year when Professor Richard Miller Devens coined the term ‘business intelligence’ referring to common reminiscent between bankers’ decision making in his book ‘Cyclopaedia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes’. The same term is used nowadays for all corporate data-related analytic processes.

It took more than 150 years for business intelligence to become a separate scientific process embraced by entrepreneurs and develop the methods it offers nowadays. In its initial form, this analytic concept was laid down by IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn in his 1958 IBM Journal article titled ‘A Business Intelligence System'. Luhn is also known as the inventor of Key Words In Context (KWIC) indexing, whose work marked the efforts to make business statistics more understandable for non-expert users.

Types

The key general categories of business intelligence applications are:

• Spreadsheets
• Reporting and querying software: applications that extract, sort, summarize, and present selected data
• Online analytical processing (OLAP)
• Digital dashboards
• Data mining
• Process visualization
• Data warehousing
• Local information systems

Except for spreadsheets, these tools are provided as standalone applications, suites of applications, components of ERP systems, or as components of software targeted to a specific industry. The tools are sometimes packaged into data warehouse appliances.

Open source free products

• BIRT Project, by the Eclipse Foundation
• D3.js
• JasperReports
• KNIME
• Pentaho
• R
• SpagoBI
• TACTIC

Open source commercial products

• Palo: OLAP server, worksheet server and ETL server
• Pentaho: reporting, analysis, dashboard, data mining and workflow capabilities
• TACTIC: reporting, management, dashboard, data mining and integration, workflow capabilities
• JasperReports: reporting, analysis, dashboard

Proprietary free products

• Biml - Business Intelligence Markup Language
• Datacopia
• icCube
• InetSoft
• Splunk

Proprietary products

• 1010data
• ActiveReports
• Actuate Corporation
• AnyChart
• AnswerRocket
• ApeSoft
• BOARD
• Comarch
• Crystal Reports
• Data Applied
• Decision Support Panel
• Domo
• Dundas Data Visualization
• Dimensional Insight
• Grapheur, implementing the reactive business intelligence (RBI) approach
• GoodData - cloud-based
• IBM Cognos
• icCube
• InetSoft
• Information Builders
• InfoZoom
• JackBe
• Jedox
• Klipfolio Dashboard
• Lavastorm Analytics
• LIONsolver
• List & Label
• Logi Analytics
• Looker
• Microsoft
  • SQL Server Reporting Services
  • SQL Server Analysis Services
  • PerformancePoint Server 2007
  • Proclarity
  • Power Pivot
  • Power BI
• MicroStrategy
• Oracle
  • Hyperion Solutions Corporation
  • Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition
• Panorama Software
• Pentaho (now Hitachi Data Systems)
• Pervasive DataRush
• Phocas Software
• Plotly
• Qlik
• RapidMiner
• Roambi
• RW3 Technologies
• SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence
  • Business Objects
• Sisense
• SAS
• Siebel Systems
• Spotfire (now Tibco)
• Sybase IQ
• Tableau Software
• TARGIT Business Intelligence
• Teradata
• XLCubed
• Yellowfin Business Intelligence
• Zendesk
• Zoho Reports (as part of the Zoho Office Suite)
• Zoomdata

External links

• "Top Business Intelligence Tools". Predictive Analytics Magazine. February 2012.