Tibco plugs streaming data gap in Spotfire

Tibco has added the missing piece in the latest iteration of its Spotfire platform, with new streaming data analytics capabilities, a move that will be well-received by enterprises in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Announced at TibcoNow in Las Vegas this week, Spotfire X will offer native support for real-time, streaming data from 80 streaming sources, including WITSML for oil and gas, as well as Bloomberg for financial services.

The company said the streaming data could be explored like any other data, and could be linked to historical data for context, root cause and impact analysis.

Chwee Kan Chua, IDC’s global research director for big data, analytics and artificial intelligence in APAC, said Tibco’s streaming data analytics would resonate with the region’s enterprises, particularly those in manufacturing and retail industries.

“Anyone who deals with streaming data will love it, because it’s no longer just about static dashboards,” he told Computer Weekly on the sidelines of TibcoNow. “This is important for organisations that need to be able to respond to changes and demand instantaneously.”

Robert Merlicek, Tibco’s chief technology officer (CTO) in APAC, said a bus operator, for example, would be able to tweak the frequency of its bus services based on real-time data on passenger load and traffic conditions. “They can spread out the buses so that people don’t wait 14 minutes for the first bus, and the next one comes one minute after.”

In the financial industry, Merlicek said banks could also analyse user behaviour and patterns in real time using machine learning to detect and prevent fraud on-the-fly, rather than depend on pre-determined rules.

“There’s an air of aggressiveness in Asia, and those in competitive markets have been willing to adopt such technologies to increase their market share and revenue, and improve efficiencies,” he said.

Although Tibco’s efforts to shore up its analytics capabilities are a step in the right direction, much of its business still comes from its integration software portfolio. “The analytics space is very crowded with players like SAP and IBM,” said Chua.

Chua noted that Tibco’s strength remains in integration, adding that organisations in APAC, such as governments and airports, were more focused on getting the plumbing right by pulling different systems and data together before applying analytics.

“Once they fix the plumbing, they will be able to roll out new features and applications,” said Chua. “And they may choose to use something else like Qlik or Tableau for the analytics piece, and that’s fine because they’re still paying for Tibco licences.”

According to Chua, Tibco has been mainly focused on the North American market, as well as Australia and New Zealand, but that is changing with the company’s growing traction in APAC in recent years.

“With a stronghold in machine data, it is strong in financial services and has nabbed many Japanese customers that usually prefer to use local vendors,” he said.