Oracle Exec thinks Mobile BI on Verge of Mass Adoption

 Despite the wide availability of mobile-based business intelligence (BI) tools in the market, the issues involved in deployment of such technology and the small number of “serious” users of the tech has hindered the uptake of the platform, according to the Program Director of EPM and BI at Oracle, Scott Tunbridge. The so-called “serious users,” or those handful of executives who use mobile BI when deciding on real-time actions, are just a small segment of the current mobile user base.

“You don’t see a proliferation of mobile BI users yet. It’s not like everyone in a room uses mobile BI; it might just be that one person who’s doing sales, production, or cost management and must be able to have up-to-date information in order to make a decision in real-time,” Tunbridge said.

Tunbridge foresees a near future where capabilities currently available only through web-based BI tools will migrate to the mobile platforms, which is the stance he says Oracle is taking. He notes that web-based dashboards are deployable on mobile platforms so businesses need only write once to deploy on multiple form factors. Tunbridge points to tablets, such as Apple’s iPad and Google’s Nexus 7, as the ultimate platforms for mobile BI tools instead of smartphones. He said, “Everyone initially thought mobile BI [refers] to the mobile phone’s interface, but navigating that small device with your fingers is a difficult user experience. We see more of a push to provide better capabilities on tablet devices.”