Self-service business intelligence looks to be the next big wave in the BI marketplace, industry experts agree. In a January 2010 report, Gartner Inc. pointed to growing demand among business organizations for a "data discovery tool architecture" that not only provides end users with data and reports, but also enables them to navigate and visualize the data in a "surf and save" mode. This means that data views deemed valuable are stored for reuse or sharing.
These tools are being put to any number of uses: For predictive insights, to bring BI information to non-technical users, to accommodate high-level analysts who need ad-hoc reports right away and to allow different types of users to collaborate and share information and views.
