A few weeks ago I introduced MSPmentor readers to Panorama Software’s Necto — which connects the dots between business intelligence (BI) and social media. More recently, I spoke with Panorama Software CEO Eynav Azarya to find how the Necto fits in with the company’s future plans — which include support for the Windows Azure cloud.
First, some background on Panorama and Necto. “Contextual relevance is the name of the game,” said Azarya. “The Necto is unique because of two things: social intelligence and automated insight.” Panorama Necto uses algorithms to help Panorama’s mid-market and enterprise customers, in Azaria’s words, “help find data you don’t know that you don’t know… Companies are looking for speed of thought, decision and action.” So Necto’s algorithms takes a user’s search history and then suggest relevant content to read and people with whom to connect.
The Microsoft Angle
The Panorama Software — Microsoft Corp. partnership runs deep. Panorama developed OLAP (online analytical processing) related software when the company was founded in 1993 and then continued to develop it through 1996 before selling the solution to Microsoft.
“Our CTO Roni Ross flew to Boston to meet with Howard Dresner of Gartner, Inc. But Dresner didn’t show up. So Roni decided to meet with Microsoft instead. She ended up selling OLAP to Micrsoft over lunch.”
OLAP is now the platform for most of Microsoft’s BI solutions today. And the Panorama — Microsoft relationship has taken off since then. Panorama will soon reveal its first BI solution to run on Microsoft Windows Azure. Panorama is also set to launch a BI solution for SMB’s at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (Los Angeles, July 10-14). “There is a need for this type of BI in the SMB space,” said Azarya. “It’s much harder to be an SMB than an enterprise when it comes to competing. So There are many new announcements and developments coming up. All of this is based on Necto.”
We’ll be watching for updates from Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.
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