SAP extends the reach into the SaaS-space with an enhanced offering of SaaS BI. Business Objects BI On Demand goes beyond the already available SaaS BI from Business Objects. It comes integrated with Xcelsius (dashboards) and Business Objects Explorer, all available via an easy to use web interface - at least, that was the impression when SAP demos the front end during a web presentation.
With the product SAP repeats the claim of bringing BI for everyone, extending it now into the cloud. The product is indented to make it easy for users to combine data sets and share reports and such with others.
Since the BI stack runs in a data center, companies should - at least in theory - be able to get up and running fast.
The new SaaS BI gives SAP a better chance to address non-SAP-customers. Companies should be able to integrate data from on-premise and on-demand apps - even the ones from SAP competitors like Salesforce.com.
Of course, the product should also attract SAP users. Interfaces to existing BI environments from SAP are in development and will be provided, SAP said. Then it will be possible to push data from on-premise into the BI environment in the cloud, the ERP vendor explained.
The combination of different BI products from SAP in one cloud-based system sounds compelling, allowing companies a fast start into BI without dealing with BI infrastructure.
However, SAP is not the only company offering SaaS BI. There is e.g. IBM (Cognos 8 in the cloud) and Teradata (Teradata Enterprise Analytics Cloud) and some specialists like Panorama.
Besides the announcement of a subscription fee pricing, SAP has not provided pricing details yet. Pricing figures will be interesting - for new and for existing customers. Will there be a midmarket friendly model?
Another topic to look at: Integration options with IT systems and the management/governance of data between on-premise and on-demand environments will be a topic to look at.
From Frank Niemann, PAC Germany
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