• Volume and costs (e.g. which pattern of events are the highest in volume and what is the overall cost of each pattern?)
• Correlation of event volumes with durations and demographics (e.g. we get more volume out of call centre X, this particular pattern of events occurs more often at call centre Y)
• Customer satisfaction levels, correlated to the high or low volume event patterns. (e.g. people who reach this call centre seem to be more satisfied. People who follow this pattern of events are more satisfied).

You may already have reports in the following areas, but customers will often have unique requirements. Do you have the ability for them to design their own reports and dashboards?

• Monitor inbound and outbound calls
• Study calls and IVR event distributions
• Track agent actions vs. satisfaction
• Call volume, frequency, and distribution
• Track customer’s time in queue
• Track call transfers and consultations
• Conduct demographics analysis
• Conduct multiple visits analysis
• Discover purchasing behavior

Nextanalytics specializes in embedded analytics. What I mean by that it is that we target our product and services to work closely with providers of packaged software and solutions.

Nextanalytics is an industrial strength data processing engine that converts raw data into valuable business information.  It does this with a simple approach, a light footprint, and is highly focused to the task of converting raw data into information.

We use a combination of product and services to help companies deliver analytics within their product suites and solutions. Our core mandate is to deliver integrated analytics at a reasonable cost and a fast time to market.

We believe that analytics should be part of every software solution because better information is a competitive advantage for your customers.

The investment in raw data has been made by the users who use your software. The data is is sitting there, barely tapped for the information hidden within.  Datawarehouses and operational data stores are not easy to get information from. Traditional techniques take months to produce static or minimally interactive reports. Our analytics are designed to extract the extra value with very little effort and overhead with as much interactivity as you wish to expose. The ROI is within reach.   

If you give users improved value from their data, they will reward you with their loyalty. 

Nextanalytics is a turnkey analytic data processing product which extracts crucial information buried in raw data.  Instead of being a separate product like BI and dashboard vendors, our product integrates into your product or solution to give a customized look and feel, one that's exclusive to you.  Your customers will recognize that it was you that delivered what they need, and not be tempted to spread their loyalty to other vendors.

Nextanalytics gives you the chance to deliver innovative business information, economically and rapidly

The processes which convert raw data into information run in the background. Display the information using our open source dashboards or export the analytics to your own viewer. You have complete control over how users view and use the analyzed data.  

Writing turnkey software that processes data is our speciality, based on more than 20 years of core BI development expertise.  Implementations can be done economically, rapidly, and can be priced to fit within your delivery model whether it be SaaS or on-premise, subscription or perpetual pricing, per user or per server. We're flexible, we will work with you to develop a plan to fit your needs and budget.

Seth Grimes published an article about the potential growth of four BI companies. 

“That core software components are free makes open source attractive to users as well as systems integrators and independent software vendors that sell products and services built on open source BI components.” 

Take note: People at least start out expecting products which advertise as Open Source to be free.

The companies he wrote about leverage the words "open source" in their marketing albeit with the word "Commercial" associated with "Open Source". 

I am worried that, to someone who's not "in the know," this distinction is too subtle.  I am thinking of the general press (ie. not BI press) and customers who are new to BI, etc etc. 

They latch onto the words "Open Source," we all know that. They think it's all one and the same, they're talking about True Open Source.

I would worry that might feel as if a bait-and-switch occurred once they learned what's really going on.  To varying degrees, this will eventually detract from the brand and philosophy of "Open Source" (per the OSI definition).  In essence, this is what Roberto Gallopini joked about when he read one of our early days press releases.    BTW, that particular press release was a mistake, some of the wording about Open Source got out of our control and published before we could correct it -- Roberto was quite right to tease us about it :).

Seth said:

 “Commercial open source BI vendors, notably Pentaho and JasperSoft, offer these components in free community editions with open source licenses, and also packaged with non-open source extensions in paid, supported, indemnified editions.

"It's hard to get going without help from the vendor, and anytime I need to upgrade, I get a little bit nervous. (from Seth's article, a quote by Venkat Gaddipati, CTO at online marketplace OnForce)"

“Beyond Compliance harnesses the Palo OLAP Server on the back end and the non-open source Palo Worksheet Server for report distribution.”

To me, these quotes imply that a customer needs closed software to find it useful.   Are these companies really Open Source vendors? I see what I see.   Form your own opinion.

In a separate article by Stephen Swoyer, Vincent Pineau, GM Talend Americas, said:

"We definitely do not feel that open source should equate to free. Yes, we are lower [in price] than our competitors, but we also do not want people to think that cheap in price or cheap in features. We believe that the right features are what people should focus on," Pineau says

Ok, then, we have had a project up at Codeplex for a long time now.  It is true open source.  I'd really prefer you pay for the commercial one (at this site).  Can we now call ourselves Commercial Open Source? Is that now an acceptable term? 

Premise-Promise of Open Source

Seth said “For most open source BI adopters, however, the solution search starts with cost.” 

Folks, from my experience, people seeking Open Source want a FREE, totally free, experience.  They want to pay nothing. Period.

This isn't the case with Commercial Open Source vendors. Customers end up paying $30,000.  And they might spend a month or two of expensive IT time trying to get it working before they resort to these Commercial Open Source vendors. 

Remember, this is something they originally thought would get free.  $30,000+ and several months of work is not free.  One might even argue that "Commercial Open Source" is not in-expensive.

Sometimes it's better to pay and get documentation, support, and quality control. IMO, you will end up spending less.

Our own philosophy is that the stuff you need to be open-source, is. 

For example, our User Interface and programmatic interfaces are all Open Source. Supported, customizable Open Source.

Therefore, one shouldn't divide the BI world into two categories.  There are more than the four "commercial open source vendors" and the monolithic mainstream BI vendors who were mentioned. 

In fact, there are plenty of other vendors who can fulfill BI needs very satisfactorily for less cost than Pentaho and Jaspersoft.

Those are good companies. I know some of the founders and they are great people. I can't quite comment on their product quality since Open Source by its nature can easily have random bugs injected and no one is accountable.  

My Point is, if you're shopping for Commercial Open Source, then also open your minds to other vendors too.  The TCO will be about the same and you might have a better experience. Not everyone charges as much as the big guys, although, I wish :)  ...