Matt Casters on Data Integration

Being a “non-American”, Independence Day completely caught me by surprise.
Independence is still something that goes to the core of what many people and companies take at heart.   It’s always good to keep that in mind.  A few days ago I read (and answered) some question on Nick’s blog concerning the level of independence that you would retain when choosing for the Pentaho Open Source BI platform.

Unfortunately, I know all too well where the concerns come from when companies ask these though questions.  Time and time again I have witnessed the failure of commercial companies to respond to critical business needs or problems in the software.  On one occasion I have seen a €50.000 piece of software simply “not work”.   Mmm, you say, didn’t you check with this fine company if the functionality would be in the software?  Yes, but against flat-out lies, there is little defence (besides not paying the invoice that is )

Also, if you have been in the BI line of work for a number of years (like I am), surely you must have heard one of the “failed BI projects” stories too.  Projects that drag on for 6-12 months and then have little or nothing to show for but a nice-but-outdated-by-12-months requirements document.

Companies and the people working for these companies remember these disasters quite well.  There is nothing like blowing a milion dolars to make a company concerned that this kind of thing won’t ever happen again.

One way of making sure that it doesn’t is by turning to open source for your BI needs.  A (BI) solution based on open source will give you a better return on your investment in time, servers, software, but also guarantees you that you minimize the risk of never seeing a return on your investment.

It also makes you less dependend.

Happy 4th of July America!

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