Why do we need business intelligence platforms?

A very good article by one of the largest professionals in Oracle Business Intelligence in Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, answers the question posed in the title in an interesting and accessible way.

The author with examples from his real practice shows the patterns of development of projects for the construction of analytical systems at the customer. In the field of view of the article fall into such solutions as self-development, open source and commercial BI-platform. For each of the options, the author brings advantages and disadvantages.

The article will be useful to those who only decide whether to contact the introduction of BI software, and those who are already facing the choice of a particular product. Also, the article will be useful to anyone interested in theory and practice in the field of Business Intelligence.
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So the article: Why do we need Business Intelligence platforms?

PS: By the way, a rather interesting discussion ensued there in the comments, with the participation of your humble servant, including :)