Panorama Business Intelligence Blog

While Gartner and other BI analysts and experts have recognized the magnitude and impact of Google and Panorama’s partnership on the BI world, some others are still a bit confused as to the meaning of this new development.

Let me try to explain why we have made such a significant bet on being the company that powers Google Apps and Google Docs with BI.

If you ask common business people if they perform BI (most will not even know what that means unless you ask about “analysis and reporting”), 90% will answer “sure I do, I use Excel”.

The sad reality (sad for us BI companies) is that we (BI companies) only deal with 10% of the population – the “Power users”, while 90% perform their reporting and analytics inside spreadsheet applications. It’s true, the numbers are changing and more people use BI tools but the ratio compared to spreadsheet is still very VERY low.

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As promised, we released the first enterprise extension for Panorama Analytics for Google Docs in the form of SQL Server Analysis Services support. In the following days we are accepting new users by registration on our web site www.panorama.com/google/ssas but in the next couple of weeks this will open up for the masses.

We’ve seen a very large amount of registrations since we announced on Thursday and expect to respond to all our users in the next couple of days.  We thank everyone for their patience. 

Many have emailed me asking about our plans for the product with Google.   Well, we have a long list of systems and platforms we plan to support in the coming months with a goal of making the experience of using Google spreadsheets and other Google applications (such as iGoogle for dashboarding) a very powerful experience.   I can’t disclose the exact plans yet but whether you use SAP or a SaaS based solution, you should expect to get some powerful functionality right from within Google Docs.

So why did we start with SQL Server Analysis Services?  For two main reasons: (1) we got feedback from our existing customers who wanted to get a powerful extranet, collaborative solution for BI while using  their existing BI data infrastructure and (2) it is the most popular data source (outside of spreadsheets themselves) for analysis using Pivot Table functionality.

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New Support for SQL Server^TM Analysis Services Allows Enterprise Customers to Use
Google Docs to Analyze, Report, Visualize Their Corporate Data

Fresh from announcing their addition of Business Intelligence (BI) to Google Docs, Panorama Software, a global leader in Proactive Business Intelligence, has revealed a new solution for the enterprise level market.  The beta version of its newly developed functionality for Google Docs will allow the support of its first enterprise data source – Microsoft SQL Server^TM Analysis Services, the most pervasive OLAP solution in the industry.   This is the first of what will be many enhancements and new functionalities that Panorama will roll out for Google Docs in the next few months.

Microsoft Excel has been known to be the only spreadsheet tool capable of providing BI capabilities in the form of analytics and reporting for enterprise level data.  By adding support for SQL Server^TM Analysis Services, enterprise companies can now use Google Docs, the most powerful Software as a Service (SaaS) based spreadsheet in the world with its strong collaborative capabilities, to get more out of their enterprise data in new and flexible ways.

Companies have long wanted a fresh way to analyze corporate data using a spreadsheet application, while also enjoying advanced collaboration, mobility and access-from-anywhere functionalities.  With the new support for SQL Server^TM Analysis Services by Google Docs with Panorama Analytics, enterprise customers have exactly what they have been asking for.

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Today Nigel published is report on the new strategic direction Panorama is taking. You can read the full report here: http://www.olapreport.com/Comment_Panorama_Google.htm

Here are a couple of quotes:

“Google takes its first step into the OLAP world by partnering with the same company that helped Microsoft’s entry a decade earlier…”

“Formed in 1994, Panorama is now one of the longer-lived small, independent vendors in the OLAP world — but unlike others, its survival has not been based on hiding in a specialist niche. We have tracked the company since mid-1996 (well before most analysts) and have observed the remarkable influence on the industry it has had since then….”

On PowerApps: “Behind the simple pivot table interface is rather more OLAP technology than might be expected. As the Google spreadsheet is Web-based, Panorama cannot use the RAM on the client machine to cache the multidimensional data, which is of course what Excel does with local PivotTables. Instead, Panorama uses an undisclosed proprietary OLAP server to do the job, generating server cubes on-the-fly from the data in the users’ spreadsheets. This cube-creation process does cause a delay of at least 10 to 15 seconds (more with larger cubes), and screen refresh after any user action also takes several seconds, so the user experience is not nearly as slick as in Excel.”

Coming home on a balmy spring afternoon, you finger through the multiple envelopes haphazardly stuffed in your mailbox.  Your eyes are met with the usual junk mail, bills and ever-present grocery store leaflets, but an envelope from your internet service provider, a small company, catches your attention and results in a raised eyebrow.  Within it you find a nicely written corporate letter from a senior executive informing you that the company has been acquired by a large, well known communications corporation.  This letter was being sent just to inform their existing customers of this acquisition and to assure you that you could expect the same, if not better, level of service.  Fittingly, it wasn’t long after that you begin to notice slowdowns in your connection speed and customer service that has little or no answers for your many newfound problems.  The closest thing you get to an explanation is from a customer service agent who gives a clearly well-rehearsed line about how, while the company goes through a state of transition, your patience is greatly appreciated.

It is with the same curiosity that many in the business intelligence industry have raised their collective eyebrows at the sweeping changes that have taken place in the world of BI.  Consolidation has become the name of the game as major companies have bought major BI players with the intention of bolstering their positioning in the BI landscape.  While such acquisitions make headlines within the industry and are often heralded as great leaps forward, behind closed doors the story is significantly different.  On the most basic level, post acquisition, the pressure mounts for these companies to figure out how to integrate their products as best as possible due to the problem of overlapping technologies. 

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A lot has been said and mentioned on our recent announcements about our new platform and BI applications in Google apps. Some very smart people have written some very interesting blogs. there are probably dozens of blog posts out there but I selected my personal favorits.

Stay tuned for more announcements from our side in the next few weeks ;)

http://bobjblog.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/google-working-with-panorama/

http://www.biguru-online.com/2008/03/28/google-bi/

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single10597

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2008/03/27/why-microsoft-might-bid-for-bi.aspx

http://performanceguys.blogspot.com/2008/03/panorama-and-google-apps-end-of.html

http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!1664.entry

Wow, what an amazing launch day. I was always told that launching with Google gets you some great exposure but I didn’t expect this!

The Google launch team was fantastic (Thanks JR, Nir, Mary, Rob and Yoach J ), not only they helped us make this solution work in the past few months, but also made sure the launch went smoothly and greatly coordinated!

I had a chance to talk to customers, partners, press, analysts and here are my key takeaways from the first day:

• Google docs users really want Pivot Tables!! The amount of feedback and comments we got was mind blowing. I actually got emails from people telling me that “now that Google docs has Pivots I will start using it”. there is no better feeling than shipping something that is so high in demand.
• Enterprise customers think that with BI in Google apps they might give it a shot as a good alternative to MS Office (we got some specific request for some very cool features and capabilities that will make available in the news few months). As a side comment I must admit I was surprised by the caliber of some of the companies that are looking at Google apps…..
• Companies such as Cap Gemini who have been leading the way with Google apps see BI as a major turn point for Google apps adoption.
• Analysts believe what we did with Google is probably the smartest thing we could have done ;)
• Our partners have already started building solutions for Salesforce and Netsuite which means that basic pivot table functionality is just the beginning.

But the thing that generated the most interested today was our announcement of a new analytical platform – PowerApps. For those who did not read or see the press, we’ve basically built a powerful SaaS based analytical engine for ISVs to use to extend their solutions with BI capabilities. ISVs can use our new platform to build their own SaaS BI solution and expose it through the Google application platform. So for example a company like Netsuite or Eloqua can now use our new APIs to build their own solution, tailor it to their needs, build templates, brand it as their own and make available through iGoogle and Docs.

In the next few weeks we will officially release PowerApps so ISVs will start taking advantage of it.

Keep sending me your feedback and comments. Would love to hear what your thoughts are on this move.