Business Objects SA is offering the sprat to catch the mackerel with the launch of its Rapid Data Warehouse Initiative and Rapid DataMart. The Rapid DataMart is a fixed price, 15,000 British pounds, DataMart designed to address a specific problem within one department of a company. It enables the business user to see instant benefit from a data warehouse, without the company spending millions of pounds and several years to build a full warehouse, Business Objects said. For 15,000 pounds, a company gets 10 man-days of project development. This includes consulting with the end user to find the problem or point of pain as Business Objects describes it, designing the DataMart and database, developing a repository, and pre-defining queries and reports. It also includes a four-user license for BusinessObjects release 4.0, the company’s analytical processing tool. Dave Kellog, Business Objects worldwide vice-president of marketing, says full-blown data warehouses are delivering tangible benefits to many companies. However, many companies are put off building data warehouses because of the high entry costs, length of time needed to build them, and the perception that they are difficult to cost-justify. The company says International Data Corp’s conclusion that the average warehouse costs 2.2m pounds to build and takes two to three years, is often misquoted, because it goes on to say that in three years, the data warehouse generates a return on investment in excess of 400%. Kellog believes that by giving instant gratification to an end user with a specific problem, perhaps the marketing or sales director, the company will be able to see the business benefits of the warehouse, and may begin to build one from the user end up, rather than from the information technology department down. This needs-driven approach also prevents over specifying a system, Kellog says.
Alliance of vendors
The Business Objects Rapid Data Warehouse Initiative is a technology alliance with leading hardware and software vendors, including IBM Corp, Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, Compaq Computer Corp, Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett Packard Co, ICL Plc, Informix Corp, Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp, Sequent Computer Systems Inc, Sun Microsystems Inc and Sybase Inc. These companies and others will assist Business Objects with consultancy and technical support, as well as loaning hardware and software for the duration of the Rapid DataMart project. In addition, Bull, Sequent and ICL are among the vendors that will actually sell and implement the Rapid DataMart. Kellog admitted that while this initiative is not a loss-leader for Business Objects, i t is a low margin leader, and the company hopes it will ultimately encourage more companies to build data warehouses, and of course use Business Objects tools. Similarly, the other business partners will be looking to sell their own hardware or soft ware after the life of the Rapid DataMart. Roy Sower of IBM’s decision support systems division, said IBM had been considering bundling a low-end data warehouse system with the RS/6000 for some time, when the Business Objects initiative came along. IBM will loan hardware if a company does not have spare machine capacity, and naturally hopes to sell the RS/6000 on the back of this. The Rapid Data Warehouse and DataMart is launched initially in the UK, but will be available worldwide by the end of the year.
