Sqware Peg launches BI practice with SAP

SAP has partnered with cloud integrator Sqware Peg for the launch of the vendor's first business intelligence cloud software product - BusinessObjects BI OnDemand - to the Australian market.

Targeted at casual BI users, BI OnDemand allows businesses to access, explore, visualise and share data, SAP has claimed.

"The ease of use means that customers can be up and running quickly with no prior experience or training," John Goldrick, director for the Industry & Solutions Group at SAP Australia and New Zealand said.

Helen Masters, general manager of Growth Markets at SAP Australia and New Zealand said the product is a "massive opportunity for channel partners to take advantage of two rapidly growing market segments: business intelligence (BI) and on-demand software delivery".

For Sqware Peg, the SAP partnership adds business intelligence to its existing software-as-a service (SaaS) range of salesforce.com, Eloqua, Google and Informatica.

It has also allowed Sqware Peg to launch a new business intelligence practice around the product.

"We're building this business intelligence practice around this partnership," Shawn Stilwell, managing director at Sqware Peg told CRN.

He said OnDemand is "a natural fit" for its 800 plus customers.

"It's a way for us to stick some of those SaaS offerings together and give a consolidated dashboard about their business performance."

"We could have partened with BusinessObjects years ago, but it would have been in the on-premise space.

"This was the first real goer in terms of analytics. There's been others such as Salesforce, but this is quite a serious offering," he said.

SAP has three editions planned for BI OnDemand.

The free personal edition allows customers to try the comprehensive capabilities with limited storage capabilities.

The Essential edition increases storage and is targeted at individuals, departments, teams or divisions at $45 per month, per user.

The Advanced edition includes a hosted data warehouse, development environment and single sign-on (SSO) security features, which will be available later this year at $123 per month, per user.

SAP is currently planning to make SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand available through its SAP PartnerEdge program in the channel partner ecosystem later in the year.