Is business intelligence a smart move?

As businesses continue to use computer systems for a growing number of functions, they face the challenge of processing and analyzing huge amounts of data and turning it into profits. In response to this, vendors are trying to upgrade their business intelligence (BI) products, which are sets of tools and technologies designed to efficiently extract useful information from oceans of data. If successful, upgrading the technology would not only help users but could also let BI vendors widen their products' audience. However, despite the recent improvements, widespread adoption still faces several key challenges, such as high costs and the need for BI systems to integrate and interoperate with the many heterogeneous corporate data sources. The paper discusses new BI trends and considers Web-based BI. It reviews the obstacles to BI adoption.