Gone are the days when businesses are anchored to a ground with a definite demographic. Organizations these days are spreading their wings across the globe through the reach of technology and mobile and social networks, among many other fronts. However, nothing comes without a price. The desire to be far-reaching is even-handed, with huge volumes of data in businesses’ networks from inside out. It is with this thrust that SAP AG announced the launch of its 4.0 releases at the SAP Run Better Tour at NYC today. The 4.0 releases consists of business intelligence (BI) and enterprise information management (EIM) solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio, which the company claims to be the products of a 3-year long software development program.

The new BI and EIM releases offer a wide array of technology innovations and are assimilated in a single infrastructure. It features a friendly usability of social networking tools which shapes the future of analytics, be it in terms of real time and in-memory computing, number of supported by BI or combination of structured and unstructured information. It also features the finest sort of deployment: on-premise, on-demand, embedded in business operation or in hybrid fashion.

“Historically, companies have dealt with BI on a project-by-project basis, separate from each other and from their EIM initiatives, lacking the ability to bring that data together,” said Carl W. Olofson, research vice president, Application Development and Deployment, IDC. “The latest BI and EIM solutions from SAP are designed to help tackle big data, integrating structured and unstructured data and even information from social networks. New capabilities for event insight and information stewardship bring the benefits of data trustworthiness and process timeliness to customers. All of these components should provide the basis for an information environment that is nimble and responsive – one that fosters a culture of knowing, helping every person in the organization derive context and meaning, decide and act with confidence, and contribute to greater efficiency and profitability.”

The 4.0 releases of BI and EIM solutions features the following:

• Real-time in-memory computing – Optimization for use on SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (SAP HANA) software makes “business in the moment” possible by enabling customers to harness “big data” with the power of in-memory computing.

• Easy, mobile BI on any device – Across mobile platforms and devices, workers can access intuitive, real-time BI and respond instantly to events as they unfold. New interactive visualizations and user experience enhancements make it easier for users, whenever and wherever they work.
• Business and social data with confidence – Deeper text analysis integration complements traditional business insight with the thoughts and sentiment that people express in social media streams, blogs and e-mail. People can now monitor, analyze, explore, report and act with confidence in the accuracy of not only their transactional data but also with full insight into the trends and sentiments expressed in unstructured content of blogs, e-mail and social media streams.

The combination of all these releases enables SAP to deliver superior-quality analytics in a single sophisticated, high speed business software in order to reach its 1 billion user base. It has been working closely with partners such as g Accenture, Atos Origin, Capgemini, cundus AG, Deloitte, HP, Logica, Siemens IT Solutions and Services and Teradata to bring the new power of business analytics across all industries.

Another cloud giant competing with SAP on its focus on the mobile arena is Juniper Networks. It recently partnered with Nokia-Siemnes Networks to launch a new Carrier Ethernet Transport 2.0 that will enhance operator capacities and reduce cost in Ethernet network access. VMware, on the other hand, announced a new mobile virtualization platform enabling employees to have two separate profiles, one personal and the other, professional.