Tibco Brings Analytics To Spotfire 3.1

Access to analytics is fast becoming commonplace in leading BI products, but vendors have yet to eliminate the need for high-level expertise at some point in the in the deployment. For Spotfire customers, as with competitive offerings, that stage is in the creation or adaptation of models and algorithms to application-specific uses.

"The workflow starts with a statistician or group of statisticians creating a model in either S+ or R; that part is not going away," Callan confirmed.

Upgrades to the core Spotfire product in version 3.1 include new user-interface controls including pull-down menus, list boxes, text boxes, sliders and button controls. The upgrade also adds user-defined variables and parameters said to greatly reduce the need for IT programming and configuration. New visualization options have also been added, including heat maps, bar- and line-chart overlays and a lasso data-selection tool.

Tibco says new Web mashup APIs available in Spotfire 3.1 can be used in combination with Simplified Application Data Services to analyze data from enterprise data sources, such as SAP NetWeaver BI, SAP ERP, Salesforce.com, Siebel eBusiness Applications, and the Oracle E-Business Suite.

Citing diverse requirements, Tibco declined to detail pricing of the Spotfire Statistics Services option or supporting Tibco Spotfire S+ authoring client. Tibco Spotfire Professional desktop software, which lets users access data in flat files, spreadsheets and relational data sources, is $3,000 per user/per client for a three-year license. Lower-cost monthly and annual licenses to the software are also available (starting at $79) at the Tibco Spotfire WebStore.