Oracle Adds Mobile Business Intelligence to iPad, iPhone
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) today unveiled a number of new features for its business intelligence software, including a new mobile business intelligence (BI) application for Apple's iPad and iPhone.
Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad has been quick to dominate the mobile BI market, freeing users and developers from the form factor constraints of smartphones.
Paul Rodwick, vice president of product management for Oracle Business Intelligence, told eCRM Guide that Oracle is seeing the same trend. The enterprise software giant is seeing “very demonstrable interest” in business intelligence on the iPad, which is why the company focused on Apple iOS first. Other devices are “on the roadmap,” he said.
Rodwick said the Oracle mobile BI app is a native shell app, so it operates like a native app but requires no redevelopment or training. Users can access all Oracle BI 11g dashboards, reports and scorecard capabilities and geospatial visualizations.
The mobile BI app is part of Oracle Business Intelligence releases 11.1.1.5, which Oracle announced today in addition to new versions of Oracle Business Intelligence Applications and Oracle Real-Time Decisions.
Oracle BI 11.1.1.5 also includes new extended OLAP and in-memory platform support and new real-time decision management features. Support for additional data sources includes Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database, Oracle OLAP, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services and SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW).
The new Oracle BI Applications Release 7.9.6.3 takes advantage of Oracle BI's new mobile app with alerts, dashboards and reports for the iPad and iPhone. The prebuilt analytical apps — which span a wide range of enterprise applications like finance, HR and sales for Oracle and non-Oracle applications like SAP — also get a new user interface with interactive charting and prompting capabilities and an enhanced Common Enterprise Information Model.
Oracle Real-Time Decisions Release 3.1 gets a new “Decision Manager,” which helps manage, monitor, refine and optimize operational decisions across customer interaction channels. Oracle says the platform integrates easily with any customer touch-points infrastructure for web, contact center, email, kiosks and point-of-sale. It is also available pre-integrated with Oracle's Siebel CRM. The platform leverages real-time and historical data, business rules, predictive models, automation and self-learning techniques to deliver decisions that adapt over time.
For more on business intelligence, see Ten Great Mobile Business Intelligence Apps and Six Ways Business Intelligence Software Can Help Your Business
Paul Ferrill has been writing for over 15 years about computers and network technology. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering as well as a MS in Electrical Engineering. He is a regular contributor to the computer trade press. He has a specialization in complex data analysis and storage. He has written hundreds of articles and two books for various outlets over the years. His articles have appeared in Enterprise Apps Today and InfoWorld, Network World, PC Magazine, Forbes, and many other publications.
