Business Objects Fleshes Out SAAS BI with More Salesforce.com Support

Update: Business Objects spent 18 years leading the market for business intelligence software, applications that help knowledge workers and executives gain greater understanding of the market behavior and business context of their users.

Now part of SAP in the wake of a $6.8 billion buy, the BI company hopes to extend its lead in hosted, or SAAS (software as a service), BI as well.

Business Objects Dec. 10 released a new version of its BI OnDemand software with new content creation and development capabilities and accelerator for SAAS CRM (customer relationship management) power Salesforce.com.

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BI OnDemand is essentially a version of its flagship BusinessObjects XI suite, which includes applications for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and enterprise information management.

While the XI suite comprises apps customers install on their own servers and PCs (on-premises), Business Objects hosts BI OnDemand on its own servers, provisioning the associated apps to customers over the Internet as required. This is the hallmark of cloud computing—allowing users to procure software service over the Web without clogging up their own hardware and storage.

Indeed, the shift to the cloud popularized by Salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services and Google's App Engine leads to great opportunities for a company like Business Objects. Here's why.

Enterprises typically employ a hybrid of on-premises and on-demand applications for their workers, partners and customers. Deriving BI from these disparate data sources is a challenge, so BI OnDemand enables customers to share reports and dashboards that include both on-premises and on-demand data, Mani Gill, vice president of Business Objects' OnDemand business, told eWEEK.

For example, Gill said the new content creation and development environment helps companies that complain of having limited visibility into their sales pipeline.