As Mark mentioned we are going to show you folks some exciting BI capabilities that are available to you and your organization today! Today’s post is on Mobile Analytics. Let’s start with the business side of this discussion as that is where it all begins and ends.
Why do Mobile BI? It’s a fair question but there are real-world use cases for the application. Let’s go over a few Mobile workforce scenarios. Consider a retail environment. The retail industry has business unit and line managers on the floors of their stores ensuring they are operating effectively and efficiently. Surely they could benefit from on-the-road analytics. Sales representative managers, these folks are always on the road as well. Executives are another great audience for Mobile Consumption. These folks are very busy and they need access to their information no matter where he or she might physically be located.
Mobile BI is no longer a ‘geek myth’, the enabling technologies and frameworks are very much here with us today. I’ll provide you with an overview and some cool screenshots of the three vendors we recommend to our customers based upon their needs. Today, starting with 'Roam'...
Roambi (www.roambi.com) 
These folks know how to do data visualization and their founders have an abundance of BI background! I urge you to simply go to their website, it is beautiful, and their entire site is built around their mobile product’s visualizations (sounds like a good approach). So, what do these folks have to offer us?
Roam offers three products currently: Roambi Lite for people wanting to begin experimenting with their product for FREE. This is the product I used for the screenshot above. The process is pretty simple and clear-cut: you upload a sample Excel file, perform some basic data mapping, and construct/publish your visualizations. Roambi Pro provides companies with a Hosted Service that provides similar capabilities as Lite but becomes extend by supporting a larger variety of data sources with Live Data Refresh support in a secure fashion. Roam ES3 is the offering most appealing to most of us. ES3 is Roam’s Enterprise, On-Premise server solution that can connect to mainstream enterprise BI data sources. Some of the key MSFT supported BI data sources are Excel and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). For more information on Roam’s ES3 Enterprise offering please go to http://www.roambi.com/technical-overview.html
Roam’s visualizations are phenomenal, I really cannot say enough about them. They are currently 100% supporting the Apple line of mobile devices including the iPhone & iPad. Their visualizations use a FREE application you can download to your mobile apple device.
When considering an Enterprise Mobile BI solution & infrastructure there are a few key considerations:
· Mobile Platforms Supported (Apple, Blackberry, Windows Phone, etc.)
· Ease of Analytical Consumption
· Support for your company’s enterprise BI data sources & repositories
There are two other company’s mobile products we will be discussing in upcoming blog posts:
· DS Panel (www.dspanel.com )
PushBI (www.pushbi.com )
To sing up for a free Roambi account please go to https://secure.roambi.com/register
