When choosing a business intelligence application, your goal is put an effective Business Intelligence (BI) solution into place, and you're looking at processes and software. This list represents some of the more frequently used BI applications:
Source Data
Microsoft: SQL Server, Access
Oracle: Oracle 11g
SAP: N/A
IBM: DB2
Business Objects: N/A
ETL, Data Integration, Warehousing
Microsoft: Integration Services aka SSIS (formerly known as DTS)
Oracle: Warehouse Builder
SAP: SAP BW
IBM: DB2 Data Warehouse, Warehouse ManagerWebSphere DataStage (ETL) IBM Information Server
Business Objects: Business Objects XI R2: Data Integrator (ETL) Data Federator (virtualization) Rapid Marts (standard platform data marts)
Query and Analysis
Microsoft: SQL Server Analysis Services, Access, Excel
Oracle: Warehouse Builder, Oracle Hyperion Essbase
SAP: Netweaver BI
IBM: Various
Business Objects: Business Objects XI R2: Web Intelligence (query tool) Voyager (OLAP) Desktop Intelligence (query tool)
Reporting, Information
Microsoft: SQL Server Reporting Services, Access
Oracle: BI Suite Enterprise & Standard Editions: query, analysis, reporting, Siebel Answers, Interactive Dashboards
SAP: Netweaver BI
IBM: BIRT, Design Studio, Alphablox
Business Objects: Crystal Reports
Other Front-End Tools
Microsoft: Excel Pivot Tables, PerformancePoint 2007 (enterprise scorecarding)
Oracle: Oracle Data Mining
SAP: Netweaver BI
IBM: IBM Intelligent Miner (data mining)
Business Objects: Crystal Xcelsius (visualization tools), Crystal Vision (dashboard), InfoView (BI portal)
Specialty Apps
Microsoft: MS Sharepoint Server 2007 (report distribution)
Oracle: Business domain operational analytics applications, Hyperion System 9 Financial Management, Financial Planning
SAP: ERP Software, Financial Analytics (formerly Outlooksoft)
IBM: Websphere Content Discovery (unstructured search)
Business Objects: Information OnDemand (hosted BI solutions), Performance Management (Formerly Cartesis)
