Jedox CEO Kristian Raue about Palo Open-Source Business Intelligence
Our IT got Android powered touch smartphone for testing. We used this oportunity to check how well Palo Web runs on it. Answer: very good. WebKit and 1GHz CPU make it possible to run just as good as on desktop PC without any changes. Would be nice to see some “optimized for mobile devices” applications.
Palo suite 3.1
We are proud about yesterday’s release of the new version Palo 3.1 , which brought a strong progression in performance. Users already called it “a much much (!) increase in speed” and “a dramatic increase in speed.” The release included Palo for Excel 3.1 (including Palo OLAP 3.1), Palo Suite 3.1.(including Palo OLAP 3.1 , Palo ETL 3.1 and Palo Web 3.1). Also part of the release was the first ramp up of Palo OLAP GPU. I have already written periodically about the incredible gain in speed by using GPU in Business Intelligence, so today I would like to focus on Palo 3.1 and pick a few highlights from the more than 50 new features Palo 3.1 is offering:
There loads of other features to make working with Palo more comfortable – Palo fully supports now Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, contains a new homepage button to get back to homepage with on click , offers extended chart configuration for Meter charts, or German and French interfaces for Palo Pivot, or automatic calendar generation for time dimensions, etc.
All new features are listed in the “What’s new in Palo 3.1” – guide, which is available under http://www.jedox.com/en/community/mypalo/my-palo-installation-first-steps.html.
Palo Web 3.1 contains a lot of new features. Even if the final version of Palo Web 3.1 will not be published before the end of March, I would like to draw your attention to some of the features. In this post I will show the new ribbon elements as an optional replacement for the “old school” toolbar/menu bar. They are part of Palo Web 3.1, to see them now you have to download Palo Suite 3.1 Ramp up version on www.jedox.com.
The ribbon user interface was made popular with the release of MS Office 2007. It was developed with intention to increase productivity by better organising features into sets that are easier accessible and more often used. Benefits of the ribbon elements are somewhat controversial though – they are actually matter of taste – they are evolving a long tradition of menu/toolbar driven user interfaces. Therefore, unlike in MS Office, users in Palo Web can switch easily between the two interfaces (Options/Spreadsheet/Toolbar) and use the one they like the most: the classic menu with a toolbar or the new ribbon.
In the following screenshots you can see a selection of the ribbons you find in Palo Web.
You can download Palo Suite (Ramp Up) here.
Even if Germany’s predominant SAP is not pursuing an Open Source strategy (yet*), SAP clients take a different position. Money matters, especially in midsized firms, in manufacturing, in commerce and quite badly in public administration. Lots of SAP users are looking for affordable, flexible alternatives to SAP BW, especially for planning, but also for reporting and analysis. In plain language, they are scanning the market for something like a “BW light”.
Palo OLAP Server can play this role. The latest release of the Palo Suite now has SAP interfaces SAP R/3 ERP (in addition to SAP BW Connector in the previous release). So with the new and enhanced Palo SAP connectivity, it is now no longer necessary to refer to SAP BW for OLAP analysis using SAP data. SAP R/3 and ERP system users who do not require full BW functionality can now use the Palo Suite and Palo SAP Connectivity as an easy and very flexible alternative to a BI platform which can be installed quickly and is ideal for use by professionals.
With access to SAP BW and SAP R/3 ERP-systems, Palo can now be integrated optimally into SAP landscapes. SAP data is extracted simply and effectively at the table level or through a generic RFC /BAPI interface. The ETL process is fully modelled using a graphic web front-end. Details about the new Palo SAP Connectivity are available at: http://www.jedox.com/en/products/palo-sap-connectivity.html
* which they could, since SAP makes 75% of their revenues with software related services
Don’t worry. Jedox is not sending an SOS signal. Jedox is doing fine. Downloads and sales are on the rise, products are advancing, new people on board and a new website as of today.
SOS stands for “Supported Open Source” and is a new offering by Jedox starting today. In 2009, Palo users still had to choose between using the Open Source Edition of Palo (without professional support) or buying the Enterprise Edition with full support and maintenance. With Supported Open Source we are now introducing a third option which fills the gap between those two extremes.
Supported Open Source is based on the Open-Source Edition of Palo (both Palo for Excel and the Palo Suite). You download an Open-Source Edition of Palo and then you can buy a support subscription for a low monthly fee (starting at 187 € per month) directly from our website. The SOS subscription is tied to one specific Palo installation but with no limit in terms of number of users or number of CPUs. It includes 10 support tickets per year (additional support tickets are available).
Also included is a Jedox Software Assurance which basically means that we safeguard you from any intellectual property issue with Palo Open-Source software components delivered by Jedox. These assurances include (a) substituting the infringing portion of the software, (b) changing the software so that its use becomes non-infringing, or (c) acquiring the rights necessary for a customer to continue its use of the software without interruption.
We also decided to change the pricing and licensing model of the Premium Edition of Palo. It is now available as a monthly subscription starting at 19 € per month and named user (Palo for Excel Premium). Looking at a minimum of 10 users, the monthly subscription comes out at 195 € per month (Palo for Excel Premium) and 390 € (Palo Suite Premium). A feature comparison and price calculator on our new website make it easy to learn about the different subscription options. And as always promised, Palo for Excel and Palo Suite are available as free-of-charge Open-Source Editions as well.
Today we published the Palo 3.0 Service release 1.
It includes new release versions of the major Palo products. Our developers in Freiburg and on other locations worked hard during the last months, sometimes even on weekends or at night. My latest blog was about developing software resembling a marathon race. In that sense today’s release means we are on time and ahead of the crowd. The service release contains the following elements:
For those who are annoyed by looking at change logs, these are most important changes:
Palo OLAP 3.0 SR1 includes major performance improvements in the Multi-Threaded version. We optimized all areas of Palo OLAP regarding speed and scalability. Other big improvements were made to optimize the general Marker performance.
The new Palo ETL 3.0 SR1 version offers a 100% web based user interface for modelling and administration of the ETL process. All functions can now be created and accessed via a modern web user interface. Relational database can be used as additional sources to load data into. This allows for example the creation of staging areas to pre calculate and consolidate information before loading them into Palo OLAP. We also offer in Palo ETL 3.0 SR1 new extraction filter functions for dimensions and cubes. Furthermore, we developed new features for the dynamical creation and extraction of Palo OLAP rules. Palo ETL 3.0 SR1 is also part of the Palo Suite 3.1 ramp up version with additional features.
Palo Suite is now available for download as 3.1 ramp up release with the new components and updated documentation. Palo Suite includes Palo Web (formerly known as Worksheet Server 3) with the ad hoc query component JPalo integrated. JPalo allows defining ad hoc queries on top of any Palo OLAP database. Intuitive slice and dice and drill downs with filtering are possible, as well as write back using splashing commands. Beside Palo User and OLAP modelling management, Palo ETL is also included in Palo Web, which offers seamless integration of all ETL processes through the new Web user interface. We will now work with selected clients on base o the ramp up version for further improvement. The next step than will be general availability. So volunteers for testing the ramp up are welcome.
Publishing the Palo 3.0 Service release 1 is our way of giving pre-Christmas gifts. I hope you do enjoy it. As it is my last blog for 2009, I’d like to wish my readers a merry Christmas and a happy 2010.
Business life involves sprints and marathons. Product development, above all, resembles a marathon, especially in the software industry. The most important thing is finding the right people for your team. It takes good consultants and sales, people who understand the customers and know the market, strong developers.
We have been lucky to hire some new specialists with in-depth knowledge of business intelligence. The most important addition is our Senior Product Manager. Matthias Krämer has many years of experience in product development and product management of Business Intelligence software. Matthias was previously employed with Infor as a Product Manager with worldwide responsibility for BI products and their integration within the Infor ERP systems. He will therefore, at the interface between customers, consultants and the development process, from now on have responsibility for the development of the Palo Suite. Even if Matthias knows the market and the job perfectly well, being a product manager always remains a challenge. Product development inherently involves conflict. Apart from dealing with a founder like me, who has de facto been doing the product manager’s work and all the decision-making up until now, there might be conflict between purchasers and end users, sales and marketing, development and consulting. Addressing these conflicts productively is part of the product management marathon.
Development is another marathon discipline for software companies. We are also expanding our Development Department. In Prague, Jedox acquired an entire development team with combined 40+ years of experience in the development of multidimensional databases. The same team had in recent years been responsible for the development of the MIS Alea, now the Infor OLAP. With their expertise in OLAP databases, these OLAP specialists will help to increase the pace of development of our OLAP engine. Our R+D team is now about 30 people strong, while the company as a whole counts around 60 employees and 15 developers nearshore. The new OLAP specialists will also work on integrating our GPU research into the development of our in-memory OLAP software. So we are speeding up both our software by using multiprocessor GPU hardware to achieve exponential performance gains for number crunching in BI, and at the same time our development work by adding state of the art OLAP knowledge. Performance is a key point in BI and CPM, and the speed of development is a key factor for an Open Source software company competing against heavyweights. Speed and heavyweights, on the other side, don’t go together, which is even more true if it is a marathon race. As no other BI vendor is developing GPU based BI and CPM software, and as we’ve gained further momentum in development, I’m confident that we are in a good position for medal winning in the BI race.
On October 6 and 7 we had the Palo Open 2009 in Frankfurt, the annual meeting of users and partners of our software Palo. Applications and solutions that use Palo were introduced, and the 2009 Palo Award was conferred. Ranked most highly on participants’ feedback forms was the keynote of OLAP-Guru Nigel Pendse. The software analyst and publisher of BI Survey criticised large producers of Business Intelligence software.
Based on the feedback from Business Intelligence users, Pendse demonstrated that BI products and services of large providers performed well below average. Pendse explained that Business Intelligence is simply not the core business of large software companies. Large providers’ ongoing acquisition politics reflects the poor quality of their product portfolio. According to Pendse, nothing positive can currently be expected from the large providers in terms of BI, since they are overly concerned with integrating their many new acquisitions. Pendse advised corporate BI users to choose the best products on the market, which generally are offered by smaller providers.
Levels of business Benefits reported
I agree with Nigel. Particularly SAP and Oracle seem to have considerable product overlaps. Microsoft and Cognos don’t do much better. Clients don’t like to pay for products that are dropped within a few years. These developments in the market might help small vendors like Jedox. Our projects – and our clients – get bigger on average year by year.
Germany is experiencing the strongest setback in economic activity for decades. Assessments see economics in Germany diminish around 6%. Topics like controlling, risk management and liquidity planning move into the centre of management attention due to the crisis. Companies have no money to waste in time of crisis and need to use company data efficiently to make the right strategic decisions. Shortcomings in liquidity planning for example can drive a company into insolvency quickly. As analytical and planning processes today are run by IT-Systems in most middle-sized and major firms, vendors of business intelligence and performance management benefit from the growing importance of controlling. Currently the industrial association German Engineering Federation VDMA writes in a position paper for its membership titled “To act appropriate in difficult times”: “… How costs within the firm develop entirely can be monitored by modern Business Intelligence solutions. To exploit the potential of using IT promises far more benefits for the companies than simple saving measures. “
The crisis improves the readiness to change
For sure, implementing a new business intelligence system won’t bail out companies which find out during a crisis that controlling works with wrong numbers, that data produced in different departments are contradictory or that key performance indicators have no significance. The critical view on company structures in periods like those however works in favour of business intelligence vendors. In a crisis the readiness to change in companies is bigger than ever. This applies also inside IT and controlling departments, where simplification of processes and cost efficiency are aimed at. Response time is another topic that comes to the centre of attention, as optimizing the response time allows downstream business processes like the adaption of product offering to market change to be accelerated. But not only crisis drives interest in business intelligence. Many middle-sized firms have been growing massively by global expansion in the last decade. Efficient communication with the new locations is crucial for these companies. Order inflow, stock on hand, liquidity, risks – all data have to be available as quickly as possible and in high quality in a central business intelligence tool.
Whether based on Open source or on proprietary software, due to the shortage of financial possibilities there is a growing influence of the controlling and planning process within an enterprise, and thus a growing interest in Business intelligence.
McKinsey Consulting claims Business Intelligence to be Competitive Intelligence and defines it to be the key information to success in a market situation.
Business intelligence proves the saying: every crisis opens up new chances, right. It can be applied for the former so called “digit douchbags” in controlling, who are gaining massive influence in companies, as well as to provider of Business intelligence Software, as their markets seem to explode.
Cost reduction in IT departments and evolving Company Structures have contributed their part to the rise of a new class of Business intelligence, the Open Source Business intelligence Software. Business intelligence was long ago controlled by the global Heavyweights like SAP, IBM or Oracle. Open source Business Intelligence premiered 2008 in the magical Quadrant of the renowned consulting firm Gartner- Consulting, as a result to fulfilling the same criteria of commercial Software. Open Source business intelligence products are often the favoured software products. They usually convince with higher usability, easy customisation by qualified Users in the departments and the lower prices.
An estimated 500 Million people worldwide use Microsoft Excel. Out of these 500 Million users about 5%-10% perform some kind of analysis, reporting or planning tasks with Excel. While Excel is very flexible and highly accepted in all organisations and enterprises, people will – as soon as the company has more than a few employees – very soon end up in something commonly referred to as spreadsheet hell.
With this in mind, I recently posted an article about the Beauty of Palo. Palo’s beauty lies in the introduction of centralized data cells and in a more than 2-dimensional (i.e. multidimensional) writeback-enabled database which is centrally hosted on a secure server within the organisation. With Palo, many users can simultaneously work with consistent data in Excel. Data entries in one sheet (or even data imported from CRM and ERP systems) will automatically be applied to all worksheets in the organisation. Therefore, “Excel plus Palo” is a better solution than Excel alone. “Excel plus Palo” provides all advantages of a centralized Business Intelligence solution without the cost and the time it usually takes to introduce a dedicated Business Intelligence solution.
Now, what do I mean by “beyond Excel”? While “Excel plus Palo” is already a great advance in terms of data integrity and process efficiency, could there be even more? The answer is yes. For example one important feature that is missing in todays spreadsheets is “structure dynamics”. When you change a value or filter criteria in a spreadsheet, all dependent cells are updated automatically . This is “data dynamics”. The data is recalculated, but the row and column structure of the spreadsheet remains untouched. But with structure dynamics the spreadsheet would not only adjust the data but also the row and column structure necessary to display the data (for example an ABC Analysis may require 5 or 10 or 100 rows to display all A products depending on the query parameters).
While traditional spreadsheets are structure static, the new online spreadsheet available with the upcoming Palo BI Suite will be structure dynamic by introducing a new technology called “Dynaranges”. While in design mode, Dynaranges are displayed as a rectangle, covering a range of cells within the spreadsheet. These cells are actually linked to a data query (for now restricted to Palo queries, but MS Analysis Server and other data sources to follow within the next few months).
At run time the Dynaranges unfold (horizontally and/or vertically) and create as many rows and columns as the underlying data (metadata like dimensions or attribute table) require. When the underlying data or the query parameter change, the Dynaranges will automatically adjust the row and column layout of the resulting view.
Dynaranges are only one example of the advanced spreadsheet technology that we built into the Palo BI Suite. Other examples are server based scrolling, dynamic report repositories or the new chart types that we are adding to the product. I will talk more about these on a future post.
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