The Evolution of Enterprise Architecture

Gartner has issued a new press release summarizing its analysis of trends in enterprise architecture (EA). Until recently EA has been strictly an information technology (IT) function that was narrowly focused on the data and technology components of the business organization. According to Gartner, however, EA is becoming a collaborative effort between IT and the business. They project nearly a third of all such effort will be collaborative by 2016, up from 9% currently.

Business intelligence can only benefit from this shift. As EA moves from a data-centric focus to a business and strategic focus, we should expect business intelligence efforts to yield greater value since they'll flow from a more sharply focused strategic vision of the business. Sharpening the strategic focus will be critical as information inputs from social networking channels both inside and outside the business multiply. Failure to do so will increase the risk of decision makers being overwhelmed by information noise.

Especially in larger and more forward-thinking organizations business intelligence and analytics are becoming less a matter of gathering data to make narrowly focused decisions and more about seeing meaning and context to enable long-term strategic planning and contingency analysis. Viewed in this context, I think the emerging trend in EA is a natural evolutionary step forward for business intelligence and analytics.

Mobile Business Intelligence: A Consumer Electronics Perspective

In January 2011 I presented a couple of articles on mobile business intelligence. In my assessment of strategic considerations for mobile BI I noted that, given the ways in which we consume data, tablet devices should provide a better user experience than smartphones for almost all BI-related functions.

This morning I read an analysis of consumer trends in mobile devices that reinforces my assessment. The article, written by mobile industry consultant Eric Chan, makes a compelling argument that data-intensive, cost-pressured consumers will increasingly choose a tablet-feature phone combination over a tablet-smartphone combination. In Mr. Chan's words:

Consumers use smartphones primarily for media and data capabilities, not calling features. That means they're not really 'telephones,' per se; to the average person, they are portable media devices. So why stick with a three-inch screen when you can have one three times larger? And if you do buy a tablet, why continue with a smartphone? At current prices of $200 to $400, the smartphone is too expensive to win the battle against tablets at a mass-consumer level.

There are problems with this analysis. As commentators on the article rightly note, there is a convenience factor associated with the smartphone's combination of small size and functionality that feature phones cannot yet match. But I see two things that mitigate this. First, feature phones are likely to get smarter over time. Second, as smartphones become larger to compete with the superior screen size of tablets (which, as Mr. Chan noted, is already happening), they will squeeze the very pocket space that gives them their current competitive advantage.

All of this reinforces my belief that, for most BI-related knowledge work, the tablet will be the mobile app client of choice.