We are happy to offer some insights on Information Builders drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. 
Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and BI focusing on mobile, embedded and collaborative capabilities. Because each is a critical aspect of modern business intelligence, we developed specific criteria for each in order to provide an in-depth look at features geared specifically to mobile, embedded and collaborative use.
In all of our Value Indexes we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated Information Builders and 14 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on analytics and business intelligence.
Information Builders’ products offer one of the most comprehensive sets of capabilities we encountered in our Value Index assessment. The company has made recent investments to update the user experience, creating a much more modern user interface. Its products excel in the areas of integration and customization as well as manageability. The architecture used is based on a model of accessing the data directly in a variety of commercial databases and Hadoop distributions. The products support hundreds of different data sources.
These products rank first overall in the Value Index assessment. They also rank first in Manageability and second in Capability. The breadth of the product line helps in its rankings here and the company provides deep support across all the Manageability criteria we evaluated. Its products also perform well in Reliability where they rank third and Adaptability where they rank fourth.
MOBILE ANALYTICS & BI
Information Builders uses a hybrid approach to deliver mobile capabilities. The company’s Mobile Faves application, available in the iOS and Android application stores, provides access to WEBFocus content. Mobile content can be accessed in connected or disconnected mode. Information Builders supports good interactivity on mobile devices including annotations, notifications and collaboration. It also supports delivering information to wearable devices.
Information Builders ranks third overall in this mobility Value Index assessment, placing first in Manageability and third in Capability. The breadth of mobile capabilities helps in its rankings here. While the user interface has been improved dramatically, more support for collaboration among users would further improve the product.
EMBEDDED ANALYTICS & BI
Information Builders’ architecture is based on a 
model of accessing the data directly in a variety of commercial databases and Hadoop distributions. The products support hundreds of different data sources. Its breadth of analytic capabilities and output options make it applicable to a wide variety of embedded use cases.
Information Builders ranks third overall in this Value Index assessment, placing first in Manageability and second in Capability. Additional data model management and data model validation APIs would help round out its embedded capabilities.
COLLABORATIVE ANALYTICS & BI
Information Builders excels at publishing information in a variety of formats and delivering that information directly to individuals. This includes delivery that’s ad hoc, scheduled or automated. The company’s products also provide good annotation and alerting capabilities, which can better enable line of business personnel to take action based on the underlying analyses.
Information Builders ranks second overall in this Value Index assessment, placing first in Manageability and second in Capability. The vendor could further improve its strong showing with more social-media-style discussion capabilities and by enabling better coordination among participants in the analytic process, for example, allowing users to assign tasks and track them to completion.
The lowest rankings for Information Builders are in Usability and Validation where it ranked eighth and seventh respectively. While the user interface has been improved dramatically, more support for collaboration among users would help. And more information and better demonstration of financial growth would improve its Validation ranking. Since this Value Index analysis, Information Builders has released a self-service data quality tool called Omni-Gen Personal Edition, which supports data exploration, data cleanup, transformation and reconciliation.
This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of analytics and business intelligence software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.
Regards
Ventana Research
ISG Software Research
ISG Software Research is the most authoritative and respected market research and advisory services firm focused on improving business outcomes through optimal use of people, processes, information and technology. Since our beginning, our goal has been to provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies. In short, we want to help you become smarter and find the most relevant technology to accelerate your organization's goals.
