R&D Central - a Glimpse of the Future
According to Chief Development Officer Robert Gersten what started in a janitor's closet several years ago has become a conference institution: R&D central, a place where customers and analysts alike get a glimpse of future developments.
It is an interesting difference from many user conferences where the predominant practice is to show GA software only, or at most, beta. Software in R&D central is neither. Some of the products are due out in the fall release, some next year, and some are still in the idea stage. Gersten claims that R&D central is just one way of ensuring customer-driven development.
For me, keeping even the current capabilities of all the vendor products straight in my head is a challenge, so I headed for the stations that addressed near term releases. I am most excited about business information views and improvements in Smart View for Office. I’ve been critical of Brio, later Hyperion Intelligence, and now System 9 Interactive Reporting for lacking a robust meta data layer (http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163100823). If you are deploying across the enterprise, a business meta data layer ensures one version of the truth and promotes re-usability. Long-time Brio customers tell me, though, that they like the flexibility of not having to build such a meta data layer. It seems that Hyperion “Business Information Views” address both requirements. Hyperion is consistent in its strategy to ensure that the business information views span the spectrum of BPM, providing a consistent view of metrics that may come from Planning, Financial Management (FM), Essbase, or a relational data source. Bravo!
Smart View for Office, meanwhile, currently is powerful for OLAP, FM, and Planning, but it is cumbersome for accessing Interactive Reports (http://dev.hyperion.com/resource_library/white_papers/bis_wp.pdf). What I saw in R&D central could make this product one of the strongest and certainly the broadest of leading BI vendors.
… on another note, I think if some entrepreneur set up a booth here to sell Heelies, they’d make a fortune, and I’d get to a few more track sessions on time!
It is an interesting difference from many user conferences where the predominant practice is to show GA software only, or at most, beta. Software in R&D central is neither. Some of the products are due out in the fall release, some next year, and some are still in the idea stage. Gersten claims that R&D central is just one way of ensuring customer-driven development.
For me, keeping even the current capabilities of all the vendor products straight in my head is a challenge, so I headed for the stations that addressed near term releases. I am most excited about business information views and improvements in Smart View for Office. I’ve been critical of Brio, later Hyperion Intelligence, and now System 9 Interactive Reporting for lacking a robust meta data layer (http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163100823). If you are deploying across the enterprise, a business meta data layer ensures one version of the truth and promotes re-usability. Long-time Brio customers tell me, though, that they like the flexibility of not having to build such a meta data layer. It seems that Hyperion “Business Information Views” address both requirements. Hyperion is consistent in its strategy to ensure that the business information views span the spectrum of BPM, providing a consistent view of metrics that may come from Planning, Financial Management (FM), Essbase, or a relational data source. Bravo!
Smart View for Office, meanwhile, currently is powerful for OLAP, FM, and Planning, but it is cumbersome for accessing Interactive Reports (http://dev.hyperion.com/resource_library/white_papers/bis_wp.pdf). What I saw in R&D central could make this product one of the strongest and certainly the broadest of leading BI vendors.
… on another note, I think if some entrepreneur set up a booth here to sell Heelies, they’d make a fortune, and I’d get to a few more track sessions on time!
