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Information Builders

Information Builders sells multiple components of its integrated WebFOCUS BI and analytics platform (including, App Studio, Business Intelligence Portal, Pro Server, Active Technologies, Magnify, Mobile Faves, Performance Management Framework and RStat). For this Magic Quadrant, Gartner has only evaluated InfoAssist Plus. In 2015, Information Builders responded to market changes and significantly promoted InfoAssist Plus as its key product for self-service, bolstering its capabilities by rolling in the recently released InfoDiscovery. While Information Builders is known for delivering analytic applications to large numbers of mainstream users in more operational or customer-facing roles (including deployments exceeding 1 million users), InfoAssist Plus is positioned for authors who want more than an information consumption experience.

Information Builders was significantly impacted by the establishment of a new modern BI and analytics platform definition, given its focus on large, IT-led deployments, and is positioned in the Niche Players quadrant. InfoAssist Plus has little visibility or momentum in the market outside of Information Builders' installed base, which significantly affects its rating for Ability to Execute. Information Builders scores toward the bottom third in most of the survey questions used to assess market execution. Although this vendor scores well on market understanding, its ratings in the other Completeness of Vision evaluation criteria are not sufficiently good to warrant inclusion in the Visionaries quadrant this year.

Strengths

InfoAssist Plus is a combination of visual data discovery, reporting, rapid dashboard creation, interactive publishing, mobile content and the Hyperstage in-memory engine. Users can create their own analytic content and promote it as InfoApps on the WebFOCUS Server with scalable distribution. However, InfoAssist Plus can also be completely decoupled from the WebFOCUS Server, enabling easier implementation. This combination of IT-centric and modern features demonstrates a strong vision for governed data discovery. Moreover, it connects the self-service world of InfoAssist Plus to an array of traditional Information Builders strengths: customer-facing analytics, mobile applications, embedded BI, operational BI and (eventually) Rstat predictive capabilities (as of January 2016).


Information Builders improved its data access and preparation capabilities this year. With InfoAssist Plus, there is now an automated metadata generation capability, so no upfront modeling is required. Business users are able to override any inferences. Numeric fields are automatically classified as measures. Some hierarchies, such as date and geography, are automatically generated. Wizards are available for users to create data mashups through the creation of metadata objects (relational database management systems, Excel spreadsheets, cloud databases and so on). Multiple metadata objects can be joined together as an InfoAssist Plus "cluster join" (a data mashup) where each metadata object can point to disparate sources. Any metadata objects created with InfoAssist Plus can now be promoted and shared with other business users and IT throughout the enterprise through the WebFOCUS Server.


The user interface has also been improved this year. The look and feel of InfoAssist Plus is much more intuitive for creating visualizations, especially using multiple base map styles and an array of visualizations that include D3 charts and some JavaScript visualizations. In particular, better navigation and collaboration have improved the user experience with intelligent searching for linkable content. The automatic linking of content assists in the storytelling, and collaboration has also been improved. The Portal viewer allows for shared analysis and a chat/commenting conversational facility.


Sales execution and pricing continues to be a strength of Information Builders and one of its strongest scores on the Ability to Execute axis. For the most part, survey respondents gave Information Builders high scores in terms of flexibility of licensing options and overall experience during the sales cycle.

Cautions

Information Builders' primary use case is still information applications designed by IT for operational or customer-facing consumers. Although this is a strength and one reason why this vendor was a longtime Leader in previous versions of this Magic Quadrant (for the past seven years), the significant changes to the Magic Quadrant definition this year (to focus on self-service, user-generated content) push Information Builders into the Niche Players quadrant.


Overall, Information Builders' customer survey reference scores are not as strong as we would expect — given its high-touch model and close relationship with customers. Surprisingly (given its focus on customer-facing/business-model-centric information apps), Information Builders scored in the bottom quartile for business benefits. Also surprisingly (considering the enthusiasm at customer conferences), Information Builders scored in the bottom third of vendors for customer experience. It also scored in the bottom third for operations and slightly below average for overall ease of use.

Based on searches and inquiries, Information Builders has not generated an overwhelming amount of interest — especially for a company trying to position a new product (InfoAssist Plus) as a modern BI platform. Despite the technical depth of its sister product Magnify, InfoAssist Plus is primarily positioned as a visual data discovery solution. Information Builders should really look to innovate its products along the various available paths, including search-based and smart-based data discovery. Other vendors on this year's Magic Quadrant have better positioned themselves for adoption in these areas. This is the main reason why Information Builders was not considered a Visionary. It has a strong visual data discovery offering, but isn't pushing the boundaries of innovation in the way that some other vendors are.


The InfoAssist offering is primarily sold into Information Builders' existing installed base — as part of its traditional information application core business — it is not typically sold stand-alone. Information Builders had originally focused its InfoAssist offering on the OEM market only, and claims 26,000 customer sites and approximately 75,000 authors. Direct sales adoption has been limited to WebFOCUS Server customers. The new InfoAssist Plus execution strategy expands on this to include resellers and aggressive direct sales outside of its base.
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Source: https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...EL1X&ct=160120&st=sb

Gartner made a major change in how they evaluated vendors. Historically they looked at the completeness of a BI Analytics stack including support for business users, IT professionals, dashboards, reporting, predictive analytics, etc. Today the quadrant solely concentrates on the ability of business users to develop dashboards and visualizations with minimal IT support.

quote:

In 2015, Information Builders responded to market changes and significantly promoted InfoAssist Plus as its key product for self-service...

Yet it isn't even out and available to customers yet...

Thanks for the link and information though Ricardo!

Hi,

Anyone out there with experience using both WebFocus and CognosBI that would like to share Pros and Cons?

Thanks

quote:

Gartner made a major change in how they evaluated vendors

So thats why they moved quadrants

A poll about the new Gartner Quadrant.

http://forums.informationbuild...1057331/m/8617038086

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They've gone ... to looking only at products that can be used by business users with little-to-no IT involvement

I thought that's who all the whizz bang WF GUI products are for - no need for IT, no need for coders...

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Originally posted by Francis Mariani:

quote:

They've gone ... to looking only at products that can be used by business users with little-to-no IT involvement

I thought that's who all the whizz bang WF GUI products are for - no need for IT, no need for coders...

The notion that coders will become obsolete is about as valid as the concept of the "paperless office" was in the 1990s... how did that turn out?