Oracle BI Suite Standard Edition

A few days, or maybe a few weeks ago, some over-enthusiastic, mis-informed BI vendors (actually, just one) jumped on the FUD wagon and started spreading rumours that customers should think of switching from Oracle'e BI products and onto their under-featured suite (the thought of BI vendors being mis-informed is quite a dichotomy if you think about it...) because of perceived 'uncertainty' over Oracle's BI strategy and vision.

Oracle's Business Intelligence Strategy Briefing in New York city on March 22, 2006 certainly put an end to that poppycock (link to meaning: the word is American in origin, and not British!), where Oracle made known its commitment and vision and strategy for the business intelligence market, both in the tools space and in the applications space (also read Mark Rittman's excellent initial analysis of the event and announcements - link to Mark Rittman's post).

So what happened to Discoverer: it is well and alive (of course), and has a rich pipeline of planned functionality. We in the BI group are working on defining and closing down on the features we want to include in the next release of Discoverer: product managers, development, QA, everyone!
And it is available, today (link to product page).
And you can download it from the Oracle Technology Network, today (link to download page).

As you would know, Oracle announced three packages of its BI products (link to Oracle BI page on OTN), and Discoverer is part of the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, Standard Edition. So, what forms part of this edition?

• Oracle BI Discoverer: Relational and OLAP data access and user-driven customizable dashboards
• Oracle BI Warehouse Builder: Rapid design, deployment, and management of data and metadata
• Oracle BI Spreadsheet Add-in: OLAP data access from within Excel spreadsheets
• Oracle BI Beans: For building powerful custom business intelligence applications
• Oracle Reports Services: High-fidelity enterprise reporting

Request for feedback:
In my new-found spirit of trying to make this blog more interactive, and to solicit opinion from the substantial readership that this blog enjoys, I request people to spare a couple of minutes (or longer if they so choose) and drop in a line or two on what they would like to see in the next release of Discoverer, and why.
You can click the comments link at the bottom of this post and leave your comments there, or if you want you can email me at abhinav.agarwal at gmail dot com and send me your feedback in complete confidence.

Lastly, I think I may possibly have been just the tiniest bit harsh in characterising this BI vendor's product offerings as under-featured.

Additional Links:
Webcasts from Oracle Business Intelligence Strategy Briefing - New York City, March 22, 2006 (link to page)
Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing Technology Center (link)