The Emergence of Mobile Business Intelligence

I was listening to the keynote speech here at the MicroStrategy World conference (follow it live via this social media equipped page) at the start of the day and I was really excited by the keynote that was delivered by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor.  The reason I was excited was because the core message regarding MicroStrategy for 2010 was centered around mobility.  With the advent of the iPhone and the new paradigm that has evolved, MicroStrategy has seen how that will unleash business intelligence. I think they are correct in this thinking.  It was the core message the other day in the videocast I posted of Stephen Hayward and myself.  

I have often said to client, unrelated to BI, that the new model that Apple has introduced to the world is accelerating the widgetization, or from Apple's perspective, the applification of the Internet.  The web can't be consumed on a phone like it is at the desktop.  Apple got this.  They created a really robust browser, but more importantly, they gave developers and ultimately users applications that are like small packaged up piece of web content and functionality.  This drove a more natural usage of the web because it could be done when you needed it.  

MicroStrategy has seen this coming and is building it into their model.  They demo'd a future concept for iPhone apps that will tap into the business intelligence layer.  It'll mean that consumers of business intelligence information, those people needing good information to make decisions, will be able to do that anywhere.  Not just when they are sitting at their desk.  Business intelligence will become like the web - pervasive.  That is enabled by good, game changing mobile devices like the iPhone.  Even more important, I believe, will be what Apple announces tomorrow.  Their slate (or whatever they end up calling it) will be a device that sits between the iphone and the laptop.  It will further enable that mobile-acceleration of data being transformed into intelligence and moving to the places where people work.

I'm excited for a few reasons.  One, I've been a believer in this radical shift in the mobile web that Apple's iPhone was the catalyst for and it is exciting to see that spreading out into other areas, like business intelligence.  Secondly, the work / direction we've been moving towards in our xBusiness group that I am helping shape has been in this area of mobile applications with a focus on extending backend data.  I'm thrilled that the BI technology, MicroStrategy, that we leverage will dovetail so nicely into this.

It's been a great first day.  I will write additional blog entries around other sessions I went to today and gave me food for thought.  

Comments

[Jim]

Any idea how far away from reality is this concept? I know how easy it is to be caught up in the hype. I think the concept is outstanding and will be relevant to the modern executive.
Thanks for the note. I look forward to more.

[mip]

It is all fairly real. They actual iPhone apps aren't out yet, but they cant be far behind. I think it's a great vision for the modern executive - after all, they live and breath these days on their smartphones.

[Stephen Hayward]

Great point Jim, often these sorts of events like MicroStrategy World are about futures. For some of this stuff it is here.

For the game changing paradigm shift, some of it is almost here, but the difference is the infrastructure to support the shift is here. It is about the information architecture and changing the consumption of the data.

You can get standard pdf/flash on a variety of devices, the difference that has presented itself through the iPhone/iTouch revolution is the nature of the interaction with the application has changed. This is here, it is about building it out to answer our questions in new ways. I guess it is really about understanding what questions we want to answer in a speed-of-thought model and serving them up in an action oriented, geographic or context based way.