SwiftKnowledge Releases Version 9 of 100 Percent Web-Based Business Intelligence and Analytics Technology

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

SwiftKnowledge, LLC, a global provider of web-based business intelligence (BI) software, released today Version 9 of its 100 percent web-based BI and business analytics technology. Version 9 builds upon SwiftKnowledge’s enduring mission and philosophy of extending easy-to-use yet powerful reporting and analysis tools to non-technical, frontline workers, so they can gain more insight into information and make better decisions.

The company’s technology offers breakthrough usability and robust analytic capabilities via an integrated, single-product code base; patented performance and a data packet engine that accelerate queries and promote self-service BI; and patented, cell-based security that provides true data and feature/functionality granularity without sacrificing control or performance. Version 9 highlights include:

• New user interface and dashboard/report layout designer for greater flexibility, finer security granularity, and streamlined report and dashboard creation
• New content search capabilities to quickly identify and locate relevant information
• Integration of structured and unstructured data, including web pages, Web 2.0 content and YouTube videos, a byproduct of SwiftKnowledge’s acquisition by Stellent founder Robert Olson in 2009

“Only 10 percent of business analysts at a typical enterprise employ the potential of BI tools to generate business value,” said Joseph Bugajski, principal analyst for Burton Group Research (recently acquired by Gartner, Inc.). “BI is riding a tsunami wave of dissatisfaction because every organization wants more value from its data assets, yet complex and expensive BI tools appeal to few business analysts. Therefore, enterprises want and need new, more readily accessible analytical tools that produce intuitively clear analysis results and that easily integrate into the business’s culture.”

“Today’s BI solutions must reach a broad set of users who span all levels of an organization and are involved in a spectrum of strategic, operational and tactical decision-making,” said Dan Vesset, research vice president of business analytics at IDC. “As a result, design quality has emerged as one of the five key factors having the strongest influence on increasing the pervasiveness of BI throughout organizations and to external stakeholders. To provide the most business value and gain the widest adoption, BI solution flexibility becomes paramount. The tools must be easy-to-use, intuitive, visually dynamic, and adapt to users’ tendencies and needs, rather than the other way around.”

“In an age of information overload, managers today need tools that provide them with the information they need on demand,” said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex and author of a soon-to-be published book on information overload. “Tools such as SwiftKnowledge allow knowledge workers to customize their information views that, in turn, make them more efficient and effective at their tasks.”

Enprecis, an information services company focused on the automotive industry and SwiftKnowledge customer since 2007, is planning to upgrade its Continuous Quality Insight (CQI) platform to Version 9.

“We’re excited about Version 9, and the additional ease-of-use and functionality it will bring to CQI,” said Viktor Grabner, senior vice president of engineering and operations for Enprecis. “Our customers are global automotive manufacturers with a gamut of business users spanning quality assurance, marketing and engineering departments who leverage CQI and its embedded SwiftKnowledge technology to save themselves from data overload. We’re excited about the new functionality in Version 9, and we will continue to work closely with SwiftKnowledge to adopt these new features for the benefit of our customers.”

Proformance, a document management solution provider for the financial services industry, is integrating SwiftKnowledge Version 9 into its INFO-ACCESS loan automation application.

“Our customers – primarily loan, credit and risk officers – need daily and real-time access to information in a concise and easy-to-understand manner, all with the ability to drill deeper when needed,” said Rudy Hollenbach, product technology manager for Proformance. “SwiftKnowledge fulfills these requirements, and helps us deliver a visually appealing solution that features augmented reporting and analytic capabilities. Gone are the days of sifting through endless reports or struggling with complex, technical relationships. SwiftKnowledge’s 100 percent web-based platform and inherent ease-of-use also will help us avoid potential deployment issues with our own customers as they roll out INFO-ACCESS technology to an expanded group of business users.”

“SwiftKnowledge gives users a 100 percent web-based platform that includes web authoring, web access and web administration,” said Matt Connon, chief operations officer for SwiftKnowledge. “Many web-based BI applications still require client-side software downloads or plug-ins, so they aren’t truly 100 percent web-based. This approach may be adequate in a legacy BI environment where only a limited number of select power users or business analysts use the application, but it quickly becomes unwieldy and a maintenance nightmare when deployed out to a wide audience of users or mobile devices. SwiftKnowledge overcomes this hurdle by offering a BI application that is 100 percent web-based – we require zero client-side downloads because all of our technology is completely browser-based.”

Easily Accessible User Benefits: Performance, Scalability and Security

SwiftKnowledge Version 9 leverages a Microsoft^® SQL Server^™ Analysis Services data infrastructure to power a new era of BI applications that deliver an ad-hoc analysis experience to users in web time via a zero-footprint web deployment. With its patented Interactive Data Streaming^™ (IDS) and Component-Level Security^™ (CLS), the SwiftKnowledge platform provides a breakthrough BI user experience featuring superior performance, scalability and security.

With SwiftKnowledge, technical report writers or business analysts as well as non-technical, frontline users can securely access unified information that may be located across multiple repositories and data systems. They then can easily configure custom analytical views, threshold-driven alerts and visually appealing executive dashboards that simplify their unique reporting and analysis needs – all with minimal IT or developer assistance.

In addition, users can easily share configurable views and analyses they create with other employees, without needing additional downloads or software licenses. They also can utilize SwiftKnowledge’s advanced predictive modeling and data mining capabilities to develop advanced BI applications, such as a product recommendation engine based upon customer profiles or a model for understanding the impact of different market variables on financial outcomes.

ADDITIONAL PRODUCT AND VERSION 9 DETAILS

100 Percent Web-Based Technology Offers Breakthrough Usability and Robust Analytic Capabilities via a Single-Product Code Base

SwiftKnowledge’s speed and simplicity put users in control, allowing them to perform ad-hoc analysis without the traditional dependence on expensive BI customization and support specialists. With flexible delivery options including onsite, hosted, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing, the technology’s web-based platform and single-product code base simplify licensing and accelerate organizational BI rollouts.

Version 9 offers a variety of new and expanded functionalities to further extend SwiftKnowledge’s focus on usability. A new user interface – featuring a new navigation menu, new dashboard design and refreshed color palette – allows greater flexibility and finer security granularity; a new dashboard and report layout designer streamlines creation; new content search capabilities quickly identify and locate relevant information; tabbed dashboards provide a familiar web experience, and are easy to create and customize; and a new mashup functionality combines structured data with unstructured content, including web pages, Web 2.0 content and YouTube videos.

Patented Performance and Data Packet Engine Accelerate Queries and Promote Self-Service BI

SwiftKnowledge IDS uses virtual and physical tables combined with a proprietary packet engine to deliver extremely high performance and scalability while using less hardware than other solutions – an approach that minimizes hardware expenses for both in-house and cloud computing deployments.

Version 9 enables even greater interactive data exploration by allowing large numbers of SwiftKnowledge users to get answers to ad-hoc analyses within seconds. Its server-based, in-memory optimization supports high performance; its “load on scroll” capability returns results in seconds while supporting high numbers of concurrent queries.

Patented Approach Provides True Data and Feature/Functionality Security Granularity without Sacrificing Control or Performance

With SwiftKnowledge CLS, targeted content, features and functionality are delivered to users according to their role and profile; data is secured down to the individual cell, via central metadata – not from within reports – for dramatically enhanced security and flexibility. Additionally, a full content access audit trail helps organizations meet information security compliance mandates.

In Version 9, SwiftKnowledge extends this same level of granularity to its menu structure – a feature critical to enterprise rollouts because it helps minimize time spent on routine administrative tasks. With this new functionality, administrators gain more flexibility and control because they can set content access permissions via the menu folder structure.

Legacy of Web-Based BI and Eye Towards the Future

“In 1999 – well in advance of the multitude of vendors now touting ‘BI for the masses’ – SwiftKnowledge founders Dan Moloney, Ph.D. and Allie Gentry recognized the unaddressed need to develop a solution for frontline employees to quickly perform their own interactive, ad-hoc business analyses from familiar desktop and web environments, from anywhere, at anytime, all without burdening or relying upon scarce IT and technical resources,” said Robert Olson, chief executive officer (CEO) for SwiftKnowledge. “They also knew the solution would need to address valid IT concerns surrounding data security and application performance. As a result, in 2000, SwiftKnowledge launched its first web-based BI application to directly address these needs, and then applied for multiple patents in 2001 to secure rights to the technology’s innovative scalability and security.”

SwiftKnowledge was acquired in 2009 by Olson, who was founder and CEO of Stellent, Inc., an enterprise content management software provider acquired by Oracle Corp. in March 2007 for $440 million. Version 9 is SwiftKnowledge’s first major product release since he took over the company.

“As part of Version 9, we’re taking our first steps to meet the emerging market need for integrated content within BI applications by bringing together SwiftKnowledge’s strong background with structured data and my background in unstructured content,” Olson continued. “Today, more than 500 companies and 10,000 individuals worldwide use SwiftKnowledge technology. We’re excited to give both them and our future customers Version 9 of this pioneering technology, which the evolving BI market has proven to be both critical and well ahead of its time.”

Pricing and Availability

SwiftKnowledge Version 9 is available now via traditional software appliance licensing or subscription-based pricing. For more information, contact sales@swiftknowledge.com.

Webinar Demonstration

Learn more about SwiftKnowledge Version 9 by attending a live webinar at 1:00pm CDT on April 26, 2010. Click here to register or visit www.swiftknowledge.com for more information.

About SwiftKnowledge, LLC

SwiftKnowledge, LLC is a global software provider of powerful, patented business intelligence (BI) technology delivering a breakthrough experience for business users which drives strategic metrics and enables better decision-making throughout an organization. The SwiftKnowledge BI platform enables a new era of easy-to-use BI applications offering a revolutionary, ad-hoc analysis experience in web time and with a zero-footprint web deployment; with its patented Interactive Data Streaming™ (IDS) and Component-Level Security™ (CLS), SwiftKnowledge provides unmatched performance, scalability and security. The company’s unique approach and support for cloud computing-based deployments and applications provides a robust yet sustainable solution for organizations integrating BI into operational applications; seeking an easy-to-use tool for heavy, ad-hoc BI workloads; and operating within the limitations of constrained IT resources. For more information, visit www.swiftknowledge.com.

SwiftKnowledge and the SwiftKnowledge logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of SwiftKnowledge, LLC in the USA and other countries. All other trade names are the property of their respective owner.