Open Source BI Can Do Better

Is the real advantage of open source simply lowering the costs of buying and using complex software . . . sort of, commoditization on an enterprise scale? Or, should open source software stand for something much more – such as innovation based on both a truly modern architecture and collaborative development methodology? I say yes.

One of my most often-repeated phrases, inside of Jaspersoft, is “if all we do is replicate the capabilities of the aged, proprietary BI vendors of the past, we will create some value but not enough. Jaspersoft is about innovation and doing things much better, much differently. Our mission is to reach more organizations and individuals with our business intelligence tools than any company that has preceded us.” And, I mean it.

Which is why I am so proud of our Jaspersoft v3.5 release, announced just last week at the Solutions Linux event in Paris. I spoke with Sean Michael Kerner at InternetNews about this new product release and he captured some of the most important points. In summary, Jaspersoft v3.5 introduces three new and substantial elements of functionality that distinguish our product from all other business intelligence platforms:

1. Integrated Analysis - multi-dimensional capabilities delivered within a report or dashboard, without the need for an OLAP cube or data warehouse. If desired, the customer can choose to process query requests against an in-memory data set (within JasperServer). If the customer prefers greater performance, the query processing can be pushed down to the database. This choice is configured with a check box. Pretty cool.
2. SaaS-Enabling BI Platform Architecture - multi-tenancy is built in to v3.5. An OEM customer can now use our BI platform to embed BI functionality within their SaaS application. We already have about 50 commercial SaaS customers using previous versions of our product. We've learned a lot from them and delivered this formal, groundbreaking functionality within v3.5. Our plan to expand SaaS capabilities in future releases will continue to distinguish our platform and set the standard for BI platform functionality.
3. User and Data Scalability - we've completed a wide series of performance benchmarks with v3.5. This new platform can scale from 250 - 1000 concurrent users - all using a single, quad-core-configured JasperServer, depending on the type of tasks they want to accomplish. We know of no other BI platform that can deliver anywhere near this kind of price / performance. Period.

So, you can continue to expect Jaspersoft to deliver BI tools that solve new reporting and analysis problems for many needing organizations. And, you can continue to expect us to do so at the lowest possible cost. This is a win-win for our customers and an invitation to check out a demonstration of Jaspersoft v3.5.


Brian Gentile
Chief Executive Officer
Jaspersoft