Appliances Can Bring BI To The Masses

Tom Jowitt,

Enterprise software could take off in the SMB sector if it’s packaged up in easy-to-use form, say Microsoft’s Doug Leland and HP’s Doug Small

“Business intelligence and data warehousing have been mainly used in large enterprises,” admitted Microsoft’s Leland.

“But with these appliances we are hoping to drive these technologies down into the SMB sector,” he added. “This is one of the unique value propositions of these appliance offerings, as it reduces cost and complexity, and makes it more accessible to smaller companies.”

Pricing And Availability

The four appliances are the HP Business Decision Appliance, the HP Business Data Warehouse Appliance, the HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance, and the HP E5000 Messaging System.

  • The HP Business Decision Appliance is available now from both HP and HP/Microsoft channel partners. This appliance run business intelligence services and costs approximately $28,000 (£17,430). It includes three years of 24/7 hardware and software support services from HP. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 are licensed separately.
  • The HP Business Data Warehouse Appliance is due in June, and the HP Database Consolidation Appliance is planned to be available in the second half of this year. No pricing is available at the time of writing.
  • The HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance is available today from HP and Microsoft channel partners. It includes services for site assessment, installation and start-up, as well as three years of HP 24/7 hardware and software support services. Prices are less than $2 million (£1.2 million). Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse is licensed separately.
  • The HP E5000 Messaging System is due out in March and should be available from HP and HP/Microsoft channel partners. Again it includes three years of HP 24/7 hardware and software support services and costs start from $36,000 (£22,400). Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is licensed separately.