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TIBCO Spotfire + analytics review
October 18, 2013

TIBCO Spotfire + analytics review

Prabhu Ramamoorthy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Desktop

Modules Used

  • Spotfire S Server, S-PLUS and RZ analytic engine

Overall Satisfaction

  • Visualization (presentation, reporting, slice and dice).
  • Analytics.
  • Ability to handle large and diverse data sets.
  • Customer interface.
  • The analytics interface could be improved.
  • Support for financial libraries and inbuilt libraries could be increased.
  • Interactive reporting, slice and dice.
  • Time saving as the Web player can be used for analyzing data interactively.
  • Analytics and visualization in the same tool.
  • Primarily business intelligence and reporting costs are saved once it is set up with the ability to dissect data in a useful manner without the need for an extensive reporting team. This is useful in terms of cost savings.
SAS R
Other systems only supported the analytics part and lacked the visualization component.

It depends upon the users. SAS has more financial libraries.

R is picking up stream and since it is open source, there are a large number of financial libraries currently being built. The advantage with Spotfire S server is that it can be used along with R libraries too.
I have seen licenses being reviewed by the client and end users of the product regularly.
Spotfire is one of the leading tools for visualization and intelligence. It seems to have generated a lot of interest lately and is faring very well, including in many of the IT research reports.

Product Usage

30 - Even my current organization uses Spotfire. Our focus is on the financial services space serving reporting needs in the advisory and consulting area. The functions range from risk to regulatory reporting to AML.
10 - Technology team
Professional services team
  • Spotfire if mainly used for reporting and visualization and for slicing and dicing of data. It can be used for executive and management reporting.
  • Combined with S server for analytics, Spotfire can be a powerful tool for both data analysis as well as visualization and reporting.

Evaluation and Selection

I have previously used SAS and R. Primarily I switched from SAS because of the reason that Spotfire not only supported analytics along with S server but also supported visual analytics,

It could be efficiently used to perform the analytics part using S-PLUS and R and then visualize it using Spotfire which is an area where Spotfire is very strong.

Implementation

I have seen clients happy with the implementation and give a good feedback. Overally rating and feedback is very positive.
  • Implemented in-house
  • Professional services company
It was a mix of in-house implementation along wiith a professional services company

Training

  • Online training
  • Self-taught
There are a number of tutorials on the web and the company does highlight uses in specific industries including finance.
Yes the visualization layer is very intuitive.

The analytics S PLUS server is also easy to learn (separate from visualization layer) and with the right skills, learning time is also not significant here.

Support

The technical support team does respond back and do look into reports diligently.
No - There are many consultants who do provide support for TIBCO Spotfire.

Usability

The product's interface for visualization is very user friendly and takes minimal learning.

If you want to use the analytics part (separate from visualization), there may be a learning curve and the necessary skills required.

But for visualization part, very little curve is required and the product is very intuitive.

Reliability

The product on visualization is very reliable.
The analytics S server for analytics also continues to be improved upon.
Setting up demos and visualization is very easy. You are able to accomplish a number of functions in a limited time.

Integration

  • Other databases.
  • Other engines like R.
Spotfire is easy to connect to most data sources.
  • R engine.
It does integrate with R

Vendor Relationship

Look at the value-add of different modules including S analytics, web player. See if you can support on these modules.