GrayMatter, Orange & Bronze demonstrate Pentaho open source business intelligence software to PH companies
- Tuesday, 23 November 2010 01:52
GrayMatter Software Services of India and Philippine partner, Filipino software development company Orange & Bronze Software Labs (O&B), recently sponsored a seminar on open source business intelligence (BI) software last November 22 at the New World Hotel in Makati City.
GrayMatter and O&B presented Pentaho, a full-suite, end-to-end solution that provides best-of-breed BI solutions at a fraction of the cost of proprietary BI software. The event was attended by C-level executives representing the top organizations across industries, who were given a live demonstration of Pentaho's real-world implementation in various platforms.
In his presentation, GrayMatter Technology Director Lokesh Narasimha gave the audience a history of open source business intelligence (OSBI), which had started to expand in the early 2000. Pentaho, founded in 2004, is currently the undisputed leader in the commercial open source BI market.
Pentaho’s global clients include Monsanto Corporation, the US Food and Drugs Authority, European healthcare organization National Health Service Islington (NHS), global aviation ground services company Swissport, multimedia company Lifetime, supply chain logistics company BNSF Logistics, UK’s Optical Shop Specsavers, cardiology products provider Cardiac Science, the US Naval Air Systems Command and global travel services company Orbitz, among others.
While lower cost is a key consideration for OSBI, Narasimha said the main advantage for businesses is that it offers great penetration of a wider clientele.
“Companies that offer open source software are able to establish an industry standard and thus, gain competitive advantage. It is a good tool to promote a company’s image, including its commercial products. The open source software development approach has helped produce reliable, high-quality software quickly and inexpensively. Besides, it offers the potential for a more flexible technology and quicker innovation,” Narasimha said.
He also noted the reliability of OSBI because of a global network of open source developers who provide technical support and updates.
“Moreover, free software can be developed in accord with purely technical requirements. It does not require to think about commercial pressure that often degrades the quality of the software. Commercial pressures make traditional software developers pay more attention to customers' requirements than to security requirements, since such features are somewhat invisible to the customer,” Narasimha said.
Citing studies, the OSBI market is still in single digits compared to the much larger vendors such as SAP and IBM. However, new analyses indicate that OSBI would become a “game changer” in the next three years, owing to the fact that companies in different levels have come to realize the robustness of OSBI which only cost a fraction.
“It is a myth that only small companies are using OSBI due to lack of funds or whatever. The truth is that the largest savings for OSBI are seen in the medium to large enterprise. For instance, Pentaho is likely to cost only as much as 18% of the cost as compared to giant vendors like SAP and IBM, or when compared to large and medium BI companies like Microstrategy or Qliktech, Pentaho will cost around 23% only,” Prem Kakani, Business Manager for Asia Pacific at GrayMatter said.
Kakani noted that Asia Pacific region, where the Philippines is a part of, has the largest growth rate for business intelligence adoption in recent years. He pointed out that the presence of offshore businesses in the Philippines is a key driver for BI adoption and even at a niche level there are targeted markets that could fully utilize OSBI.
“We do believe that Philippines is ready to accept OSBI. The general BI market is pretty good here so why not OSBI? The fact is it isn't marketed here that well. We are primarily looking at the medium to large businesses since they will see the most value from shifting part or all of their BI requirements from proprietary BI to Pentaho,” Calen Legaspi, CEO of O&B said.
For further details and any inquiries regarding the Pentaho BI suite, interested parties can now get in touch with O&B at (02) 813 5967 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
