Here is a nice introduction to OSBI: www.amazon.de/Open-Source-Business-Intelligence-OSBI/dp/3446423966/ (unfortunately German only)

I've been working with open source BI software for 2 years and I can tell you that customers are realising they should invest their money on intelligence rather than the tool. I mean, the BI 'software' is not as important as the team who understand the executives needs and create dashboards, KPIs, reports which really help in decision making.

Of course, some software have more easy-to-build reports, dashboards and so on. But, IMHO, the success of any BI software lies on business understanding and creativity of people who is helping to turn the data into high quality information.

Your question is just about the technology?

All software has problems to be solved, whether commercial or open source.

Who opts for open source software, chooses to have a background service quality to support the software.

As regards the case of BI, as Pablo said, has much more information that technology, especially the Intelligence linked the presentation of information.

The relevant information will save time executive job and assist in making their decisions, not the software that will be presenting the information.

Business Intelligence softwares using as Tool and working for aims to support better business decision-making process. But we can take all its capabilities, convert and enhance into good knowledge based on requirement (like IBM Cognos Having SDK). by using SDK we can develop new opportunities (you can intigrate .net C# or Java source codes).

I feel like if you want gain from competitive advantage and to improve efficiency

for B2B Sales and Marketing Process.you need to use commercial softwares also sometimes.

Suppose IBM having BI softwares like IBM Cognos.This is having capability to do various type of decision making pocess. they have software components like prompts,alerts,dasboards,scorecards,metrics and much more capabilities.

that mean i am not supporting the commercial softwares usage. but they have much more advantages which not included in any opensource softwares(as single source package).

Thanks,

Hi

if this is of any help, there was a paper at the 2009 DaWaK conference comparing open source BI platforms: http://www.springerlink.com/content/258207105055810l/

I agree with Pablo, data management is more important than software. But open source software (OSBI) gives you more opportunities. To be clear, I'm not independent because I'm the founder of SpagoWorld Initiative, which SpagoBI suite belongs to (www.spagobi.org the suite is in the paper mentioned by Patrick, also if lot of water as flown under the bridge from 2009). A 100% open source suite like SpagoBI gives you this main opportunities: no software lock-in (right to user the software is separated from services you can buy) and vendor lock-in, opportunity to contribute, open road-map and evolution, flexibility over time. Again, it works if you have the ability to properly manage your data, but it's a plus, anyway. Moreover, with OSBI you have the source code and consequently the opportunity to measure its quality and to improve. To Bashkar: SpagoBI suite includes more that 20 analytical and operational engines, proving all BI capabilities; I suggest you to have a look and evaluate.

Hi Gabriele,

Thank you. sure i will look on SpagoBI suite.

If a free BI give all all you need for now and a near future, ok, but carefull about support and integration to your solution.

Else

Go for a commercial BI solution, they will code exactly what you need. Time and Information may worth a commercial solution.

Company's TI team must valuate all variables and solution's quality before choose for one.

In my oppinion, today, free solution's quality are the same as commercial. There are many free good tools that can you almost everything you need... and it's free.