For the 5.0 version of its analytics and search platform Spotfire, TIBCO brought on the fourth-generation of its in-memory engine, with demos showing analysis at 10 times the speed of the previous edition, as well as utilization of data warehouses from Teradata, Oracle and Microsoft for further and bigger data volume analysis. The new edition of Spotfire includes enterprise scalability for predictive modeling in R and integration with its SilverFabric load balancing and scaling architecture. In a related partnership announcement from the conference, Teradata entered into an integration agreement between its data warehousing and the latest version of Spotfire.
For the first time in recent years, Spotfire took center stage at TUCON, TIBCO’s annual user conference. Rita Sallam, distinguished analyst at Gartner Research, says the direct query access for SQL and MDX data sources gives Spotfire capabilities to use the database engine for more visual exploration, and enables better competition with rival Tableau. Beyond the capabilities, TIBCO’s spotlight on Spotfire represented a “significant change” from year’s past, which Sallam says shows renewed interest from its parent company.
“Spotfire was front and center, part of the main keynote with a significant presence and a well-integrated message with the rest of TIBCO, which strengthens TIBCO’s overall value proposition,” Sallam says.
One criticism of the previous release of Spotfire was the absence of specific capabilities for mobile use. While there are no wholesale changes for mobile capabilities in version 5, it does include a new mobile interface designed specifically for iPad use, as representatives stated that is where they are finding the most enterprise adoption and access to analytics.
Justin Kern is senior editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.
