By Dan Jones
Microsoft Corp’s Sequel Server 7.0 (SQL 7.0) has moved the goal posts for proprietary tools vendors such as Cognos Corp according to other players in the business intelligence (BI) software sector. I think Cognos has got it wrong, says Charles Tipping, of rival BI software firm Information Advantage. Tipping called Computerwire to agree with Mike Norman’s recent comments about how Microsoft’s recent launch of SQL 7.0 changed the game for the BI community (CI No 3,580). Tipping claimed his company was one the $100 a seat tools companies that Norman – senior analyst at the Data warehousing Tools Bulletin – said would cause pricing pressure for Cognos. Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Information Advantage Inc produces the MyEureka BI tool, which it calls a business intelligence portal. Tipping says that the web front-end is modeled on the My Yahoo! portal and uses channels and push technology. Tipping contrasts the Information Advantage approach using Microsoft’s Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) query language bundled with SQL 7, with Cognos’ proprietary query tools approach. Information Advantage uses MDX to define multidimensional data selections and calculations. Whereas Cognos’ PowerPlay uses an n-tier architecture that supports its own multidimensional data source, or cube. Tipping claims that the Cognos method is wrong. However, he concurs with the comments of Cognos’ Tom Camps that content not access will be the determining factor for successful BI tools. Camps made the comments in response to Oracle Corp’s claims that it would be dominant in the BI sphere because it would be able to access data enterprise-wide. Tipping described content provision as the name of the game, while, agreeing that Oracle was an enterprise player. He also said that the other major enterprise resource planning software vendor, SAP AG, which is encroaching on BI territory was not content-focused, using tools that use traditional reporting methods. Tipping also agreed with Camps over the drive towards packaged applications that worked straight out the box or required very little integration with existing systems. An upgraded version of MyEureka will be launched on February 23. The tool will cost $100 per seat for companies that buy 1,500 to 2,000 licenses.
