Shifting the Analytics Conversation

TIBCO Software signaled its ambition to democratize analytics at the TIBCO NOW. The company is looking to achieve this with alliances, co-development initiatives and partnerships.

“Innovation does not happen in isolation -- it is a team sport,” said Thomas Been. TIBCO Software’ chief marketing officer at the Singapore-based event.

"[Partners] are integral to our ability to innovate. Without them, our innovation ecosystem could not exist,” he added.

Microsoft agreed. At the event, it reaffirmed their partnership with TIBCO Software. Vivek Puthucode, Microsoft’s general manager, commercial partner, Asia Pacific saw mutual benefits.

All these efforts will make analytics more accessible. “Essentially, we are bringing analytics to a wider audience,” said Erich Gerber, TIBCO Software’s senior vice president for EMEA and APJ.

TIBCO Software is also broadening the audience. At the event, the company expanded its partnership with the Singapore Polytechnic (SP).

The company will provide SP's SPiNOFF technical materials and Project Flogo. The latter is TIBCO Software’s lightweight, Golang-based open source ecosystem.

"We are seeding the development of talent," said Gerber. He believed such initiatives are essential for analytics to enter the mainstream.

TIBCO Software is also co-creating new solutions with its major customers with TIBCO Labs. It is “already driving new conversations among customers,” said Nelson Petracek, the company’s chief technology officer.

At the event, TIBCO Labs revealed that it had 25 partnerships with customers and was working on five projects. These include blockchain initiatives like TIBCO Cloud AuditSafe and Project Dovetail, and machine learning developments such as TIBCO Cloud Conversations, TIBCO Graph Database and Project Discover.

Gerber pointed out that these efforts move the conversation beyond visual analytics.

“People still think analytics is about understanding what is going on or why something happened. But we want them to see the bigger picture and be able to take the right actions,” he said.

Yet, Gerber noted many companies tend to overlook the last part. “Many want to predict, but there is a prescriptive element that people forget."

It is an area that TIBCO Software is tackling by making analytics accessible.