TIBCO’s business intelligence division, Spotfire, has just released a new business intelligence (BI) tool, which allows users to mashup any different web applications of their choice and gain business information through one visual and interactive environment.

Spotfire 2.1 merges Web 2.0 and BI into business applications, said the firm, adding that it tackles the difficulty business users have of not being able to use consumer Web 2.0 exploration type tools at work, and instead, having to rely on spreadsheets and static reports.

Roger Oberg, Spotfire's vice president of product strategy, said “When you consider this type of mashup analytic application weaving together applications from many different sources, tied to a business process management workflow for in process analysis and an event-driven, rules-based, data delivery mechanism that feeds the mashup with fresh data for analysis when rules say it should, you start to get the potential for TIBCO’s combined products and the true vision of pervasive BI.”

Although Spotfire’s new solution holds similarities with the recently announced Information Builders and Google BI mashup applications, it will allow much wider possibilities. Google’s step into BI enables a single mashup application using Google Maps, whereas Spotfire’s allows users to create a variety of mashup applications using applications such as Yahoo! Finance or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

Spotfire is also letting users create analytic and Web 2.0 application programme interfaces (API) that do not use the whole Spotfire application. The mashup is then run inside a web browser and not inside the Spotfire application, allowing the two applications to interact as if they were always intended to work together, said Oberg.

This means customers and independent software vendors can create unique applications for their businesses that benefit from Spotfire without delivering all of the Spotfire application, he added.