business tools

Gartner: Better BI tools on the way

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:59:58 -0400

A new Gartner study finds that the role of corporate IT units in business intelligence will be shrinking. In its place, search and collaboration tools will allow individual users and business units to build their own analytical applications, according to the study released last week. Gartner said that it expects this change to occur by 2012. By then, users will turn to interactive visualization, in-memory analytics, search integrated with BI, Software as a service and service-oriented architectures to build their own reports. Search and collaboration tools, probably off-the-shelf, will allow individual users and business units to build their own applications. "Evidence suggests that BI is used aggressively by just 15-20 percent of business users," said Kurt Schlegel, an analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "For the BI sector to thrive, it needs to overcome the fact that most business users feel BI tools are hard to use." And we bet that BI tools will get much cheaper, too.

For more on BI tools to come:
- See this ComputerWorld article

New business tools promise to increase productivity

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 20:01:38 -0400

A host of new business tools have the potential to change the way that businesses operate and the way that employees work. A new breed of organizational tools, for example, can keep employees organized without regard to their location. Examples include Scrybe, which makes your calendar accessible both on and offline; Tungle, a downloadable plug-in for scheduling meetings with groups of people; and Calgoo, an online and offline calendar syncing product. Similarly, mash-up tools, which combine high-value software services from multiple sources into a single Web-based application, allow users to experiment without affecting traditional IT development. Promising mash-up tools include Longjump's subscription-based marketplace of customizable Web-based applications; Proto Software's drag and drop controls for designing applications and sharing user-created application components; and Teqlo's composite application builder, which allows businesses to integrate several popular Web services with in-house tools.

Learn more about new business tools on the horizon:
- read the article at News.com

Study: Web 2.0 as a competitive maneuver

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

A recent survey of CIOs by Forrester Research found that many large companies are using one or more Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networking and content tagging. Using these collaborative tools is the best way to compete in today's business world and can increase internal efficiency, the survey found. Many CIOs noted that they accepted the use of these tools because they were afraid that their companies would lose market share if they didn't keep up with their competitors' use of the technologies. Of all of these tools, CIOs found wikis, RSS and tagging the most useful and social networking and blogs less useful. But with time, the report noted that all of these tools will make even greater headway into the enterprise.

Read more about Web 2.0 in the enterprise:
- read the article at ComputerWorld

ALSO:
- read this about Web 2.0 for the enterprise
- this on reasons to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon
- this on wikis entering the corporate consciousness
- this on wikis bringing some business tools into play
- this on making the most of RSS
- this on a new data delivery stream via RSS
- this on tapping into the world of social networking
- and this on corporate blogging

SPOTLIGHT: Ignoring mobile tech could prove a big mistake

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:01:34 -0500

If your enterprise has been a little cautious in boosting mobile computing and communications it's understandable. After all, security issues are paramount these days. But as some experts explain, that nervousness could hold back better business and client relationship management. That's because today's cell phones and mobile devices are much more than just agents of email and calling. They're strong business tools that can boost productivity in real-time, anywhere and everywhere. Article

PLUS: Faster chips will make for faster mobile computing. Article