COMPANIES TO WATCH: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Editors' Choice Awards 2008

Actuate. Tapping interest in open-source BI and the popularity of Eclipse, Actuate has built a strong foundation for BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools). The BIRT Exchange, launched in 2007, will spread the word and accelerate demand for Actuate's larger Collaborative Reporting Architecture.

Attensity. When intelligence is buried in huge volumes of text, Attensity can figure out the who, what, when and where, and how they're all related. Text analytics is no longer just for intelligence agencies; Attensity is cost-effectively moving it into claims processing, fraud detection, warranty and service analysis, and voice-of-the-customer research.

Clarabridge. Another text-mining/analytics leader, Clarabridge specializes in analyzing contact center messages, comments, reviews and other customer feedback in the context of transactions. The result is quantifiable, statistically meaningful analysis that drives better customer service, product innovation, market research and quality assurance.

MicroStrategy. There is such a thing as best-of-breed technology. One of MicroStrategy's strengths is user-friendly, Web 2.0-style animated dashboards. You get rich navigation with advanced visualizations, including spark lines and bullet graphs, that make the insight come alive.

Omniture. Some call Omniture the black hole of Web analytics, in part because customers never seem to leave and also because it swallowed up several competitors in 2007. It's not a black box, however. Omniture DataWarehouse serves up lists and segmentation while Omniture Discover offers powerful visualizations. A deeper push into cross-channel marketing and optimization will come in 2008.

QlikTech. Business assumptions change — often quickly. That's when QlikTech's in-memory technology shines, letting analysts develop new reports and analyses without the time and expense of building new data cubes. Accuracy is high, because reports and even dashboards are derived from source data rather than summaries.

SPSS. The affordable alternative in analytics, SPSS focuses on predictive modeling, statistical analysis and data mining. The company is making a point of playing well with others, as in its recent supply partnership with Business Objects. Growing demand for predictive analytics should stand SPSS in good stead for 2008.

Tableau Software. You can go from download to professional-grade data visualization in minutes with the proven Tableau Desktop. The Tableau Server, introduced in 2007, scales up those advantages for big workgroups. The free Tableau Reader extends collaboration to ad hoc contributors. They all share easy deployment and intuitive use.