International Business Intelligence (BI) software vendor, Yellowfin,
has confirmed its place as a leader in Mobile BI, blitzing Howard
Dresner’s latest Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study.

The study, officially released Wednesday February 17 in a live
webcast, ranked BI vendor’s mobile capabilities according to the
number of mobile platforms supported, the level of platform
integration and the number of BI features supported.

Yellowfin’s Mobile BI platform scored a total of 14 points out of a
possible 16, awarding the Melbourne-based vendor the equal second
highest score. No vendor scored 16 out of 16.

“We’re very excited about the result,” said Yellowfin CEO, Glen
Rabie. “Whilst Yellowfin offers a complete BI solution, our Mobile
capabilities are regarded very highly, which was reflected in the
study outcome.”

Dresner explained, in the live InformationWeek webcast launch of the
report, that the vendor ranking was designed to assess overall mobile
capability and capacity to successfully support an organization-wide
mobile communications program.

“It was based on several key dimensions: The platform support – so the
mobile platforms that the vendor supports, and the depth of
integration for those, with an emphasis on native integration. So
vendors got extra points for native application – having an
application on the device,” said Dresner, report author, former
Gartner Research Fellow and President and Founder of Dresner Advisory
Services. “It’s intended to indicate which vendors have sufficient
Mobile Business Intelligence functionality.”

Yellowfin Product Architect, Peter Damen, explained that Yellowfin’s
range of native applications and report interactivity guaranteed the
vendor a high score.

“Yellowfin’s applications for the iPhone, iPad and Android platforms
are all native and support total device independence,” said Damen.
“Users can simply log into their existing Yellowfin account and gain
instant access to their report content - there’s no need to re-create
content for the mobile platform, or repackage it for mobile
distribution.

“Users can access and interact with their business data whenever they
need to, the same as they would from their desktop back in the
office. Users can filter results, drill down and through data,
comment on and email reports to make critical business decision in
real-time.

“Yellowfin’s 100 percent Web-based mobile applications also address
security concerns – no data is stored on the device, meaning the
confidentiality of sensitive business data is assured.”

Dresner said that whilst organizations should consider a raft of
issues when selecting a BI solution to support a mobile communications
network, the ability to support multiple platforms was a key factor.

“Business Intelligence vendors will have to support multiple mobile
platforms, because the reality is, organizations have many of them
[mobile devices] and they’re going to be around for a while,” said
Dresner.

“There are lots of different devices out there, and it’s very
difficult for them to standardize and [organizations] want to make
sure that they get the full value of the investment that they’ve
made. Whether it’s… an Apple device or an Android device, you
shouldn’t have to standardize on a platform. You may choose to, but
you shouldn’t have to as it relates to a Business Intelligence
solution.”

Yellowfin for the Black Berry platform is expected to be launched
within the next 12 months.