Experts last month remained divided on the merits of extending application suites to include business intelligence (BI) functionality as Oracle and mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) software specialist Lawson both continued their push into the reporting tools market.
Some observers welcomed the moves, claiming that adding BI functionality to application suites can make the technology more attractive to firms that want to avoid the costly and complex integration work commonly associated with BI deployments. But critics said such BI tools may be less effective in heterogenous application environments, where they have to seamlessly handle data stored in rival brands’ software applications.
Lawson was the first to bolster its credentials in BI, by unveiling its Lawson Release 9 application suite featuring a new BI user interface; improved analytical capabilities and workflow controls; the ability to alert users when business rules or targets are breached; and report “bursting” functionality so that firms can quickly distribute reports to large numbers of staff.
Peter Jones, product manager at Lawson, said the new tools are on a par with the functionality offered by many pure-play BI vendors, and offer tighter integration with other Lawson applications. “We think it is the best [BI] option for our clients as it is already configured to work with their Lawson applications,” he said. “It means it is better value for them than best-of-breed BI tool vendors [such as Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion] as there are lower integration costs.” Jones added that the technology can also report effectively on data held in third-party apps.
Lawson’s strategy is echoed by Microsoft, SAP, and also Oracle, which last month launched a new BI suite promising tight integration with Oracle applications and databases, and the capability to report on data held in heterogenous IT environments.
Oracle said its Standard Edition BI suite integrates with other Oracle apps and databases; while the new Enterprise Edition also integrates with Oracle Fusion Middleware, so it can generate reports on data held in both Oracle and third-party applications and databases.
The extent of this capability is likely to be questioned by pure BI vendors who have long argued that BI offerings from application vendors may be appropriate if a firm exclusively uses systems from that vendor, but are less suitable for complex heterogenous IT environments that feature a mix of applications.
Alys Woodward of analyst company Ovum predicted that Oracle’s strength in middleware meant its new BI suite would perform effectively in heterogenous IT environments, but argued that it may still struggle to convince customers that it works as well with SAP applications as BI offerings from pure BI vendors.
“Oracle’s middleware may mean it can access data from SAP applications, but the pure BI suppliers partner very closely with SAP; and without closer partnering from Oracle it would be valid to ask how well its BI tools will perform on SAP data,” Woodward added.
