With the acquisition of Sybase, SAP moved strongly into the mobile applications market and is now positioned in the leadership quadrant according to Gartner. As a result, SAP has a number of mobile applications that have robust functionality and integration with SAP CRM, SAP Business Suite and more. That said, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the wow-factor of Mellmo, the makers of RoamBI (pronounced Roam-Bee).
RoamBI Wows At Sapphire
I’ve blogged about RoamBI before, but at SapphireNOW, they were definitely creating a buzz. I had the chance to work at the Executive Meeting Center. There I had to opportunity to see first hand the reaction of corporate CIOs and VIPs to their software the iPhone and iPad devices. They love them! At first I was extremely skeptical that the iPhone/iPad devices will be able to break into the corporate software market considering the pervasive presence of Blackberry devices. Now I’m not so sure. Users love the intuitive interface of the RoamBI application and several people made the comment that finally they had a device that senior executives can use. Even Hasso Plattner, SAP’s cofounder demoed during his keynote using an iPad!
Clearly touchscreen devices are here to stay and Business Intelligence is a logical fit for getting tremendous insight and value at the speed of business.
RoamBI Demo
At SapphireNOW, RoamBI was using giant iPhones and iPads to demo their solutions. They provide tremendous integration into SAP BusinessObjects, allowing customers to easily distribute reports, provide real-time updates and utilize an interface that is stunning in it’s function and simplicity. Here is an iPhone demo from the floor of Sapphire. It’s worth a look:
They’ve also done an amazing job tailoring the interface for the iPad, but don’t take my word for it. Here’s a demo from InformationWeek:
http://www.informationweek.com/video/mastermix/77584599001
iPad Killer App
Partners like Mellmo mean that Business Intelligence never gets boring! Most pundits still consider the iPad little more than a large iPhone, but it’s not about the device, it’s about the applications for the device and RoamBI is an iPad killer app.
«Good BI»