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The State of Business Intelligence: Page 6 of 11

XML is alive and well, and popular for content management as well as providing the basis for industry standards such as XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language). This is presenting data-management challenges that ultimately will impact the BI establishment. XML data comes into systems and is shared primarily through documents and forms. Should the data be "shredded" into relational rows and columns? Or is it necessary to retain the document context?

IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, and new vendors such as Ipedo, Ixiasoft and Mark Logic are marketing "pure" XML database technology that retains context. These vendors, plus middleware providers such as Progress Software's DataDirect, support the emerging XQuery standard, which will serve a role similar to that of SQL. This will allow querying, manipulation and processing of XML data as easily as an Oracle or SQL Server database is queried today.

Most BI tools arrived on the scene to replace manual SQL coding. Query engines will have to upgrade to accommodate XQuery and XML, or use partner technologies from DataDirect or other middleware providers to work with XML-based sources. Data warehouses that bring in XML data and content also will have to adjust to new usage patterns that will differ from what designers anticipated with traditionally structured data. XML database technology, whether integrated with the big vendors' relational systems or offered by pure-play providers, will be important to broadening BI into the XML realm.

Time Is The Essence

When people first started talking about real-time BI, skeptics didn't hesitate to chime in. Do sales managers, or even most executives, really need up-to-the-second numbers? Or are vendors just trying to sell us more expensive stuff?