Information Builders Magazine Vol.11 No.2

I am often asked what business Information Builders is in. I like to remind people that whatever the changes in technology, our theme has remained constant: We help organizations manage their businesses by collecting and analyzing information and delivering intelligence. When you're in the information delivery business – like we are – you expect change.

From mainframe computers to PCs to client/server and now to the Internet and wireless, we have been at the center of these paradigm shifts. For each shift, we have created a series of solutions extending our core strength, which has always been to enable organizations to easily access and deliver information.

The major shift today is to wireless information delivery. By 2003, according to Gartner Group estimates, more handheld devices than personal computers will be connected to the Internet. With wireless, people really can get information anywhere.

Whether or not wireless will bring that paperless universe we once dreamed of remains to be seen. What we do know is that more people want more information than ever before. They want it without intermediaries. And they want it now. Mobile handheld devices are driving the demand for real-time, direct access to information.

Information Builders is actively responding with a number of initiatives to fully participate in this change so our customers can use mobile technology productively.

For example, with TellMe By Email, featured in this issue, we make your existing e-mail system a mobile two-way communication system. TellMe By Email not only pushes information out via any interface accessing e-mail, it also allows the end user to reply to the message and trigger another business intelligence report or pull information from enterprise systems via e-mail.

It's a practical, efficient solution because everyone has e-mail. Managers, employees, partners, and customers can use any mobile device to communicate with their enterprise information systems – and you don't have to build custom interfaces for each competing standard.

Information Builders is also partnering with organizations like Research in Motion and AvantGo to provide the most comprehensive mobile business intelligence solutions to our customers.

Business today has to be mobile. And so does the software that drives it. That's what Information Builders is all about. Our software is adaptable, flexible, scalable – and mobile – to support the needs of growing business in a world that's constantly changing.

Information Builders customers are fortunate because we help them to rapidly adopt new technologies like mobile and wireless. By leveraging their existing infrastructures and tying them together with their new CRM, ERP, and B2B systems, our customers are realizing the benefits of new technology much more quickly.

Yes, over time one theme certainly has remained constant: information delivery. But, as you see, the means of delivery are always changing, and so are we.