WTF is 'business intelligence'?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Nov 04, 2008 12:39 PM EDT |
This is another of those things that I just can't seem to wrap my mind around. Are they talking about collecting and evaluating industry trend data? Or doing the same to your own company data? Or spying on competitors? And while I hate to sound like the whiny Midol gang that infest Brand X, who lie in wait for even the tiniest whining opportunity, does this have anything to do with Linux or FOSS? I'm not real particular on what stories are deemed suitable to use on LXer, I just have this aversion to giving free publicity to companies without a good reason. |
| wjl Nov 04, 2008 2:12 PM EDT |
Carla, I'm working in that area since last month, and for none less than Big Blue themselves - so now I'm part of a 380,000+ people company, which helps us to survive... I also had no idea what "BI" should mean - as a system or network administrator, you know that users are silly, and especially those in upper management, right? Wrong. Until now I've learned that they simply think in different terms. *We* (as administrators) think of databases as connections to port 3306 or something, which have to be allowed through the firewalls, things like those - *they* as users of BI systems think of multi-dimensional cubes (ever heard of those? To sum it up shortly: the term "BI" mostly means planning, getting data out of your warehouse, think Excel (or OO Calc, which would fit better here) on steroids. This is important to big companies (or rather to all those who can afford it), and without having read the article yet, I think that an open source tool would come handy for all those who cannot afford the real big and expensive solutions. Implementing something like that in, say, Ubuntu would mean a *big* leap forward for Linux in the business area. |
| tuxchick Nov 04, 2008 3:16 PM EDT |
wjl, I understood every word you said. If only PR flacks could write that clearly :) |
| jezuch Nov 04, 2008 4:33 PM EDT |
Data Warehouses was the only class I failed at the University. I guess I'm not Business Intelligent enough ;) |
| wjl Nov 04, 2008 4:47 PM EDT |
So was I, jezuch - that's why I prefered to become an admin (and in Linux, mind you) ;-) And thanks, Carla, for the nice comment! |
| wjl Nov 04, 2008 4:58 PM EDT |
Oh, and btw: it *has* to do with Open Source in our case, since at least at IBM, we are using lots of those so-called "3rd party tools", like Apache Derby and the like. There's also a Tomcat in the default install, tho you can trade that one in for a "real" Websphere. No OS databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL at the moment - only closed source stuff like SQL Server, Oracle, or even DB2. But an Apache2 httpd is supported, and the "large" installations all run on Linux or Unix - the "small" and "medium" ones also on Windows. Overall, it's a simple n-tier solution, browser-based, and thus OS-compatible And yes, it's good to work for an OS-friendly giant. Even the SDK is based on Eclipse, and so it's Open Source. |
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