Blog: Richard Hackathorn

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Googling Business Intelligence

Several years ago, I wrote a book on Web Farming for the Data Warehouse. The focus was on the systematic refining of Web-based information resources for business intelligence, since critical information about a business was increasing created externally to the enterprise.

Today Cognos hosted a web seminar with Google to explain how the Cognos 8 Suite leverages the Google OneBox . Other vendors currently using the Google OneBox include Cisco, Employease, Netsuite, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and SAS.

Two aspects of the Google-Cognos solution were noteworthy.

First, the Google OneBox synthesized unstructured data both inside and outside the enterprise in vocabulary of the business. The little tricks that Google does for its generic users at Google.com get specialized for the business.

Second, the Google OneBox leverages the unstructured metadata about the BI implementation for a business. For instance, the report definitions to actual field values can be served up in a Google query result. So, a Cognos report can be a result item, which can be invoked directly.

My gut said... This is a future glimpse at the integration of all enterprise information across traditional technology barriers.

Posted by Richard Hackathorn on Thursday, 15 February 2007 | Permalink