Enterprise Data Mashup – InetSoft’s Style Intelligence is built upon an enterprise data mash-up platform, while SAP’s BI solutions are based on an ETL and data warehouse approach. Enterprise data mashup refers to the ability to pull source data from any location and in almost any format and mash it up on the fly for dynamic information requests. The result is a structured virtual data model that consists of reusable data blocks that can be queried in real-time for presentation in Style Intelligence dashboards and reports, or used by 3rd-party applications.
Self-Service – InetSoft's data mashup functionality is available to both business and IT users which helps maximize self-service. Through a drag-and-drop design interface, business users can create interactive visual analyses, dashboards, and reports to answer unanticipated questions without IT's help. In contrast, any unanticipated data manipulation in SAP requires significant IT intervention to redefine data models. InetSoft enables further levels of self-service for less sophisticated users such as point-and-click personalization and modification of IT-built dashboards and analyses.
Data Cache Parallelization – InetSoft's data cache parallelization architecture sits below the enterprise data mashup platform and delivers massive query performance boosts by relieving source data systems of potential overload from user queries. The architecture was inspired by columnar database technology and the Map Reduce algorithm allowing data in InetSoft's virtual data model to be cached and queried in parallel across servers. SAP requires investment in heavy-duty data warehousing appliances.
Costs
Applications – InetSoft’s Style Intelligence is an all-inclusive BI platform with a unified interface for dashboarding, data discovery, and reporting from any browser-enabled device including mobile phones and tablets. SAP charges extra for each module including mobile access leading to higher up-front licensing costs.
Deployment – InetSoft deployments typically take between 1-2 weeks to launch with minimal business intelligence expertise required. SAP deployments may take 5-6 months to launch, and since SAP is a loosely coupled group of acquired products, multiple SAP product experts are required to launch a solution. Due to a less user-friendly, intuitive interface, SAP training is necessary for all SAP users. Because of the solution’s complexity and lack of agility, enterprises may find themselves spending magnitudes more on consultants than licenses.
About InetSoft
Since 1996 InetSoft has been delivering easy, agile, and robust business intelligence software that makes it possible for organizations and solution providers of all sizes to deploy or embed full-featured business intelligence solutions. InetSoft solutions have been deployed at over 5,000 organizations worldwide, including 25% of Fortune 500 companies, spanning all types of industries. InetSoft was ranked among the top 5 BI vendors in Gleanster's customer survey report.