What Is the Future of Business Intelligence?

Roland Piquepaille writes "Mitch Betts asked this question to many technology leaders in the field of business intelligence. Here is one selected prediction. 'In five years, 100 million people will be using an information-visualization tool on a near-daily basis. And products that have visualization as one of their top three features will earn $1 billion per year,' says Ramana Rao, founder and chief technology officer, Inxight Software Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif. Check this column for more forecasts and an update on the adoption of so-called 'executive dashboards.' You also can read the original Computerworld article for even more information."

Comments

Oxymoron.

[I'm a racist.]

Business intelligence is an oxymoron.

What they really need in business is to find that all-elusive step, y'know they one right before "4) Profit!"

Anyway, regarding visualization software (let's not get into the buzzword aspects of this concept), do you really think CEOs will use it? Half of them don't even use email yet (I hear one or two are known for having their secretaries print out their emails for them). They're notoriously technologically illiterate. I assume they'll remain that way until the next generation or two succeed them (ie. people that have grown up being computer literate).

Reality check

[bigberk]

I don't mean to be insulting, but many managers are twits, and no matter what kind of wonderful software they have access to they still have to use their own brains to interpret, understand, and apply the data presented.

I take university courses in management, and am repeatedly awestruck by the sheer stupidity of some of my peers. Many of them graduate and go on to become rather useless business people.

Always remember, Incompetent People Rarely Know They Are ;)