Mobile BI – Is It Realistic?

Mobile BI is gaining a lot of attention with the huge increase in the demand for mobile devices. This topic routinely comes up in conversations with our customers as they (along with everyone else) want to be able to receive the same analytics and user experience they interact with on their desktop/laptop on their smart phone/tablet. They also expect the interaction to be achieved without loss of functionality. No small task, but then again, the customer is always right. Besides the much smaller screen real estate (3in vs. 22in and even larger) and technical hurdles (security, encryption, performance), is this even possible? How can a real-time Dashboard with dozens of charts, KPI’s and information be rendered on a device the size of a deck of cards and still be meaningful?
Recently, I attended a presentation at the Illinois Technology Association where three of the market leading mobile BI companies were evaluated. MicroStrategy, PushBI and RoamBI. While each has their strengths and weaknesses (the major one from each category noted below), PushBI is the technology that seems to fit best with our offerings as a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner and our customer’s needs.

Vendor	Pro	Con
MicroStrategy	Device / OS Agnostic	Highest price point
PushBI	Device / OS Agnostic	Least appealing graphics
RoamBI	Nicest graphics / interface	Only works on iOS

We are investing heavily in R&D around these products as well as developing some of our own so that we can extend the BI our customers are accustomed to from their desktop to their Mobile device.
Stay tuned for updates.
Business Intelligence Consulting