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I`ve discovered, on erpsoftwareblog.com, an excellent article about the needs of companies in the process of implementing an ERP solution, signed by Steve Kane, from Broadpoint Technologies.

Timo Elliott wrote, earlier this month, a post about the differences between Business Intelligence & Business Analytics. Post which I think is interesting.

As is announced on their blog, the MicroStrategy BI software platform will be available as a service in the cloud. With MicroStrategy Cloud Intelligence, MicroStrategy will host and maintain the entire BI environment, including servers, operating system, MicroStrategy 9 software and network. As they said on official MicroStrategy website, „MicroStrategy Cloud Intelligence is expected to offer elastic capacity to meet the availability and performance requirements necessary for critical BI reporting and analysis, supporting both small usage patterns for departmental BI applications, as well as the high-scale usage patterns for extranet applications”. With MicroStrategy Cloud Intelligence, which is currently in beta testing, subscribers will have full access to MicroStrategy Technical Support for assistance. Cloud Intelligence can be a means of providing the best configuration, support, and maintenance straight from MicroStrategy by offering it through the cloud. If you need more informations about it, take a look to http://blog.microstrategy.com/2011/02/wrap-up-of-microstrategy-world-2011/#more-657

I read recently, on LinkedIn, a debate about how firm size does or doesnt matter when you want to switch to using Collaborative Cloud. And the conclusion of the debate was that company size does not matter when it comes to the collaborative cloud. The myth that says that collaborative cloud roll-outs is just for small companies has been dismantled by most of the participants to the discussion. According to them, the truth is that the large companies have much more to benefit from collaborative cloud, both from a change management and behavioral change standpoint. And this because collaborative cloud is built on social media driven technology. It’s built to be intuitive, easy to adapt and easy to roll-out. Social media driven technology is designed to bring individuals together, communicate together, knowledge share together. The question is why would large companies step away from this opportunity. Some of the views expressed in the debate you can read here. But what is your answer?

I read recently that the general consensus is that the Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics in the cloud is a fast growing market, with an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.4% through 2013.
But there are some questions that still awaiting answers from experts. One of those questions is „Do I should move all the data, warehouses and associated processes in the cloud?” And this because at the moment, for the most enterprises, not only all the data warehouses are on-premise, but the majority of the business systems that feed data into these warehouses are on-premise as well.
The second important question is: „The databases can run natively on the cloud?”
The majority of on-premise data warehouses run on some flavor of a columnar database and the most Business Intelligence tools use SQL to access data from these data warehouses. So, the big problem is that these databases are not inherently designed to run natively on the cloud.
Finally, another very important question is: „How work on the cloud the I/O virtualization?” In other worlds, one of the major issues with the large data warehouses is, well, the data itself. Any kind of complex query typically involves an intensive I/O computation. But, the I/O virtualization on the cloud, simply does not work for large data sets.
So that for Business Intelligence in the cloud to be successful, what we really need is ability for scale-out block I/O, just like scale-out computing.

In this knowledge-based economy, the corporations’ value, as well as the one of organizations and individuals, is directly related to their knowledge and intellectual capital. Knowledge can move inside firms and among exchange partners through e-business systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Despite of the enormous potential and delivery capabilities of such tools, organizations needed a new instrument that would offer the decision makers valuable insight regarding various business processes and allow them to make better decisions. It is this necessity that has set the premises for the birth of a new powerful tool with a tremendous impact on the business world: Business Intelligence (BI).

BITSoftware participated few days ago at „Solutions for SME development" Regional Conferences, helded in Sibiu and Brașov. Those conferences are tehnology and finance roadshow that promotes solutions to reduce costs and streamline businesses, addressed to top management and IT professionals or executives of SME.

I've all written about the importance and the necessity of implementing an integrated management system to optimize workflow within a company for increasing the profitability. I don`t know if many of those who read those materials, have taken seriously or have considered plain Advertising. But this is there problem, not mine. Finally, everybody does with his/her own business what he/she wants. In times of crisis, few are those who think about investing in IT systems, that`s true. And up to a point, perhaps this is understandable. What seems absurd to me is the calm and the resignation of some of Romanian entrepreneurs. Beyond the fact that they are not aware of what means an ERP system and how such a solution can get them out from the crisis, they do not make the slightest effort to discover and understand these solutions.

Implementing a Business Intelligence solution is a stumbling block for many software companies. And this because any BI software is customized depending on customer requirements. In other words, the implementation requires an analyze of client business, a correct insight of customer needs and an adapting to the real situation existing at the client business level.

The sixth edition of BITSoftware`s Conference for customers and partners, held on February 4th, has become an important event for the software market, bringing together national and multinational companies from distribution, food industry, logistics, manufacturing, auto dealers, retail, telecommunications, construction, services professional. The event is organized each year and has been specifically designed to bring together the customers of Socrate+ and SocrateOpen applications.