Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Three No-Cost Ways To Get Started With BPM

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Three No-Cost Ways To Get Started With BPM: "You've heard all the promises about business process management (BPM)--how it can streamline outmoded practices, enhance efficiency, promote compliance and standardization, make your organization more agile and put you on the path of continuous performance improvement. But it all seems so abstract. How do you convince yourself, and the CFO, that you're going to get a solid return on what's probably a six-figure investment?
BPM isn't an enterprise application like ERP or CRM, but it's not really core infrastructure, either, so making the ROI clear and convincing to buyers is a challenge. Fortunately, BPM vendors are starting to realize this, too. Several now offer free, downloadable tools that let you model processes, analyze expected performance improvement and create most, if not all, of an actual executable design. The giveaways vary, but they're all based on the same basic premise: If users can try BPM software without charge, they'll see the value and ultimately step up to a production-scale investment. "

Includes link to Oracle's BPEL tool, which I didn't know was free.

Data Warehousing in a Flat World: Trends for 2006

Good read here. I don't agree with all of it but the author has alot of insight.

Data Warehousing in a Flat World: Trends for 2006: "The coming year will show what data warehousing looks like now that the world is flat. Data warehousing trends in a flat world will be driven by open source platforms for data management, offshore everything and the commoditization of infrastructure through relatively low cost servers (which, if they were any less expensive, would be disposable)."

Business Intelligence Pipeline | Q&A: Process Management Grows Up

Business Intelligence Pipeline | Q&A: Process Management Grows Up: "Intelligent Enterprise (IE): Can you recap the maturity model you unveiled at the Gartner BPM Summit?

Jim Sinur (JS): There are five stages: process understanding, process control, enterprise execution, corporate performance management and, last, competitive differentiation. You start modeling and measuring in the process understanding stage. In the second stage, you're doing more optimizing and tweaking. This is where you take advantage of rules management and optimization. In the third stage, you craft a cross-enterprise process architecture and maybe extend that to your trading partners. In the fourth stage, you instrument a framework of corporate performance management goals against the actual process.

IE: How mature are the companies you encounter?

JS: Most are in stages one and two. Basically you move to larger and larger scopes [of deployment] as you move up the maturity curve and to more dynamic competition. Once you get to stage five, you're using your processes as either a defensive or offensive weapon. "

Oracle�s Business Intelligence Bombshell: TDWI

Oracle�s Business Intelligence Bombshell: TDWI: "The platform visions of Business Objects SA, Cognos Inc., and other vendors have fueled controversy in the BI space. There�s a reason for that: the all-in-one platform play flies in the face of the BI status quo, which�until recently, anyway�was dominated by best-of-breed or point solutions. Even now, with Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion Solutions Corp., SAS Institute Inc., and others touting the convenience, flexibility, and cost savings of the all-in-one BI platform, not everyone believes best-of-breed is marked for Dodo-dom. (http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?id=7854)

Oracle�s response to this is characteristically cheeky. Not only do Rodwick and other officials champion what they argue are the best-of-breed attributes of Oracle�s own BI technology stack, but they also expand the concept of the BI platform to include the database, applications, and attendant middleware. "

MySQL 5.1 - the next generation

MySQL 5.1 - the next generation

Topics:
Partitioning
Event Scheduler
XML Functions

Much more... get up to date on this, it's coming to a Data Center near you!

SQL Server 2005: The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely: TDWI

SQL Server 2005: The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely: TDWI: "As a result, a number of SQL pros say, SQL 2005�s new BI features are actually its strongest selling point. �For myself, the enhancements to Integration Services and Reporting Services are what make SQL 2005 substantially more attractive than SQL 2000,� confirms SQL Server pro Matt Heere, who adds that �the [SQL Server] database engine functionality has been adequate for my needs since SQL 7.0,� which shipped in late 1998. "

Enterprise Systems |

Enterprise Systems |: "Netezza and DATAllegro are competing at much lower price points as they continue to increase the storage capacity of their appliances, capacities which are now in the 100 terabyte range. When comparing their products to data warehouse implementations that utilize traditional vendors such as IBM, Oracle, and Teradata, the appliance folks generally speak about orders of magnitude in performance improvements at greatly reduced costs. Both Netezza and DATAllegro can link multiple appliances together and thus achieve even greater scalability. These numbers are especially compelling as Netezza now has many marquee customers willing to serve as references, while DATAllegro is finally starting to publicize some of its reference accounts as well. "

Oracle adds 'new leg' to business with BI | InfoWorld | News | 2006-03-22 | By China Martens, IDG News Service

Oracle adds 'new leg' to business with BI | InfoWorld | News | 2006-03-22 | By China Martens, IDG News Service: "Oracle is making a major push into business intelligence (BI) software with three bundles of existing products, the vendor announced Wednesday. The company anticipates ramping up its BI software presence in the same way that it built up its middleware business, according to Oracle (Profile, Products, Articles) President Charles Phillips.

'We're adding a new leg to our business,' Phillips said during a New York event, which was also Webcast. The bundles include analytics software Oracle acquired through its approximately $6 billion purchase of Siebel Systems, completed earlier this year. "