Welcome to Merv Adrian's Expert Channel on Next Generation Analytic Business Applications for the BeyeNETWORK. Today's "analytic applications" are misnamed. They are actually analytics applications: programs that perform analysis and deliver results to people for making business decisions. In this channel, I'll look at newly emerging business applications that have incorporated business intelligence (BI) to make and execute processing decisions within confidence levels set by policymakers. I'll also discuss data management innovations like analytic databases (ADBMSs) and related technologies.

Three kinds of large software companies are converging on new analytic applications. Packaged business apps players like SAP and Oracle have purchased leading BI firms in order to add analytics to their business applications. BI tool vendors like SAS, who sell "horizontal" BI tools to companies in many industries, have added business process applications within specific industries to their portfolios. Finally, "software platform" vendors such as IBM and Teradata, who provide additional software components on which BI solutions are built, such as databases, ETL tools and portals, are adding BI tools, process models, industry models and services into the mix to deliver packaged offerings of their own.

In this channel, I will track the emergence of these new solutions, document case studies of their implementation and success, highlight emerging trends and best practices, and describe the industries and business processes that are among the early targets for these vendors.

I welcome comments, pointers to early successes and failures, questions and challenges. Please contact me at merv@itmarketstrategy.com to share your thoughts.

Welcome to the Malcolm Chisholm Expert Channel on Enterprise Information Management Channel for the BeyeNETWORK.

This channel is dedicated to covering the new generation of organizational units tasked to manage the information assets of enterprises. Each month I will be examining one aspect of what it takes to make these units successful in a business environment that is becoming ever more reliant on data.

I welcome your comments and questions and any suggestions you may have. Please e-mail them to me at mchisholm@refdataportal.com.

Welcome to the Ronald Damhof channel for the BeyeNETWORK. This channel is all about Decision Support and Data Management. Most people will translate these subjects into Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, but in my opinion that just won't cut these days.

Two aspects concerning Decision Support and Data Management can be considered an important theme throughout this channel; Rigor and Relevance and the difficult balance between these two. On the one hand we need more rigor, more depth, more theory building, more empirical proof on important issues and solutions that are written down or are even implemented. On the other hand we need also relevance; spending resources of any kind to issues or solutions nobody needs is just 'blowing smoke' and creates a mish-mash of fuzzy thinking and incomprehensible jargon (J.Dearden-1980-MIS is a Mirage (Harvard Business Review).

Researches and practitioners are the ones that hold in their hands the responsibility of bringing rigor and relevance to the table and thus contribute to the body of knowledge regarding Decision Support and Data Management.

This channel is an attempt to function as a voice for anyone that wants to listen or contribute to the above. Please feel free to share your ideas, tips, articles, whitepapers or whatever. My contact details are:

Mobile: +31 6 269 671 84
Skype: ronald.damhof
email: ronald.damhof@prudenza.nl
Web: http://www.prudenza.nl
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronalddamhof
Blog: http://www.b-eye-network.com/blogs/damhof/
http://prudenza.typepad.com/dwh/
Twitter: RonaldDamhof

Welcome to my expert channel on trends in business intelligence (BI), case studies and my thoughts on business intelligence and business integration. I hope to make use of surveys to track what is happening in the local marketplace and will tap into other parts of the world on occasion to see what is happening in other countries.

I plan to cover most areas of business intelligence including enterprise data management, master data, data integration and data quality, BI tools and services, and performance management. With respect to business integration, I will also look at how combining service-oriented architectures (SOA) and BI Web services is allowing business intelligence to be integrated into mainstream operational business processes. See how BI Web services and event-driven automated analysis are changing the role of BI systems into one where BI is helping operations personnel contribute to business performance. We will look at BI integration with applications, business processes, collaboration and portals to show how BI in a SOA is moving us from business intelligence to intelligent business.

In order to adapt to faster changing circumstances organizations are more and more in need of a growing supply of information within the decision making process. This information can be found either inside the organizations processes (often in the form of structured data) or on the outside edge (often as unstructured data). The true business value of business intelligence can be found in the ability to efficiently gather the right information at the right time from a diversity of information sources and by sharing the intelligence within the ecosystem to improve mutual performance. Business Intelligence should empower decision makers and allow them to receive a higher return-on-intelligence.

Welcome to the Claudia Imhoff Channel for the BeyeNETWORK.

Whether you're a novice or an old hand at planning, designing, implementing or maintaining Business Intelligence (BI) environments, this channel is for you. It delivers a wealth of knowledge on nearly all aspects of BI, including architectural solutions, best practices, new and future trends in technology, guidance on soft issues like organizational/cultural issues and more.  

Each month, you'll find useful insights, relevant information and constant commentary on the state of the BI industry. I welcome your comments, suggestions or observations at cimhoff@intelsols.com. Your input is what makes this channel better for all of us.

I hope you make it your "go to" channel for practical advice and help for any BI problems, regardless of industry or environment.

Welcome to the Bill Inmon Channel for the BeyeNETWORK.

Over the years, the most demanding leading-edge practitioners and users have accessed my architecture, design techniques and best practices for the data warehouse through my books, articles and live seminars.

Now, using this faster, interactive Channel, you can electronically access all aspects of data warehousing, including RSS feeds and blogs. The blog, which will provide useful insights and constant commentary on the state of the data warehousing industry, will be hosted by Dan Linstedt. It will allow you to exchange your views with me on a real-time basis. 

Remember, your input makes the Channel relevant and dynamic for all of us.

Welcome to the William McKnight Expert Channel on the Business Intelligence Network. This channel will focus on realizing the information potential of the automatic identification technology radio frequency identification (RFID). I believe that the value proposition for RFID will come in the mastery of the high volumes of data that the deployments will generate. Transformation of that data to actionable information, as has been done for ERP and numerous other operational systems, will be a high hurdle and require innovation.

Interrelated topics to the RFID information experience include master data management, techniques for managing large amounts of data and advanced levels of customer relationship management that come with detailed tracking capabilities. Stay tuned right here for knowledge to master the subject area of RFID and the innovation required to harness RFID information. I’ll use my background as an information architect and owner of numerous information management initiatives to create and share the relevant insights, advisement and commentary on the subjects, as well as other information management trends.

My blog will continue to discuss all information management topics. Please feel free to share your comments or content ideas with me at wmcknight@luciditycg.com.

Welcome to my expert channel on data integration for the BeyeNETWORK.

You're probably familiar with the narrow definition of data integration - that it is merely extract, transform and load (ETL) tools used to move data and transform it into a common format in a data warehouse. I prefer to think of data integration as the processes that transform data into business information.

So, why should you care about data integration? It's no secret to IT managers that enterprise information is not treated as a strategic asset. To add to the frustration, this means that no comprehensive information architecture and management strategy is designed and followed. It's not that IT isn't trying to convince senior management that information is a strategic asset; however, it can be difficult to quantify the business benefit. Additionally, sometimes it's impossible to incorporate the information architecture in your plans when deploying various business applications.

Given these challenges, how do you turn data into a strategic asset? How do you enable your business users to find the "single version of the truth?" Integrate data across the enterprise.

This channel will help you understand the challenges of data integration and learn how to tackle them so you can increase the ROI of data in your own enterprise.

Welcome to my channel for providing you with the latest news and views on business intelligence and business integration. Since these two technology domains cover a wide range of topics, I will focus on areas where I spend most of my time. In the business intelligence arena I will look at enterprise data integration and business performance management. For business integration, I will focus on topics such as portals and content management that help extend business intelligence into the knowledge management environment.