Fredrik Tunvall, Analyst, Software – Information Management

At its recent Software Analyst Insights summit in Stamford, Connecticut, IBM gave analysts an in-depth look at the products and underlying strategy of its extensive business analytics (BA) portfolio. A product that caught Ovum’s eye is IBM’s recently announced visual data discovery tool, codenamed “Project Neo.” The solution is the result of IBM Labs coalescing some of the company’s latest in-memory database, analytics, data visualization, and design initiatives.

IBM aims to attract nontechnical business users

Business analytics is front and center for IBM. Investments of nearly $20bn into R&D and M&A activity have left IBM with an impressive (and extensive) list of BA solutions. However, IBM has been somewhat underrepresented in the increasingly competitive market of visual data discovery solutions. Vendors such as Tableau, Tibco Spotfire, and QlikTech have led the way with intuitive solutions that have attracted a …