Fast announces BI platform

Enterprise search specialist Fast has entered the business intelligence (BI) market with the launch of a new platform designed to provide access to all enterprise information in a speedy and user-friendly way.

The Adaptive Information Warehouse features two key components – both of which can be purchased separately – Fast Data Cleansing Solution and Fast Radar. The former includes linguistic data cleansing capabilities, which enable firms to merge and cleanse data automatically, according to Fast's vice president of strategic marketing development, Davor Sutija.

Radar, meanwhile, is a web-based portal that facilitates high-speed querying and features easy-to-use Olap tools that take only a few days to master, he added.
"This is the first time a BI platform has been built on a search architecture, which guarantees the quality of the data," said Sutija. "BI users are not necessarily database professionals – they are not able to ask good questions – so the ability to do discovery using text and analytics transforms BI in the organisation."

Sarah Burnett of analyst Butler Group said the new platform was a "paradigm breakthrough" that differs from other BI offerings because Fast has effectively put the data warehouse in their search index.

"There is a stream of innovative solutions coming into the BI market, which is exciting and increases customer choice," she said. "It will leave room for the traditional BI tools that are still used by the [power] users, there's no reason why both can't work side by side – it's all about customer choice."