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Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle OBIEE vs ibi WebFOCUS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Using ibi WebFOCUS, significant cost savings are achieved with improved processes and high returns, reducing downtime expenses.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Power BI offers high ROI due to cost-effectiveness, ease of use, improved analytics, and rapid cost recovery.
Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE boosts reporting speed and decision-making despite some ROI challenges and enhances financial outcomes with WebLogic setups.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.6
ibi WebFOCUS support is knowledgeable and prompt, with personalized service, though reaching experts for advanced issues may be challenging.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Power BI's support receives mixed reviews; users often rely on community resources for quicker, more effective solutions.
Sentiment score
5.8
Oracle OBIEE's customer service is mixed, with prompt responses but inconsistent resolution quality and frequent upgrade suggestions.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
The support is good because there is also a community available.
The tendency to route users to sales personnel with limited technical expertise detracts from the support experience.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
ibi WebFOCUS efficiently manages large-scale applications, supporting both small and large entities, impressing diverse sectors with scalability.
Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Power BI offers scalability and integration, though optimizing large deployments may require expertise, especially with complex or large data.
Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE is scalable and versatile for enterprises, but complexity and infrastructure dependency can lead to performance issues.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
While Oracle OBIEE is scalable, it is more of a niche product designed to work specifically with Oracle systems.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Users praise ibi WebFOCUS for its stability, quick issue resolution, and lower maintenance compared to IBM products.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Power BI is stable and reliable, though large datasets may impact performance; frequent updates enhance its reputation.
Sentiment score
6.7
Oracle OBIEE is stable but needs proper configuration and infrastructure for high user concurrency and optimal performance.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek an intuitive interface, improved documentation, simpler security, better SQL embedding, and enhanced charting and training in ibi WebFOCUS.
Microsoft Power BI is criticized for high costs, complexity, handling large data, and lacking intuitive interfaces and AI integration.
Oracle OBIEE is hindered by outdated visuals, complex usability, performance issues, and high costs, requiring enhancements and better support.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
Oracle OBIEE has a steep learning curve compared to tools like SQL Server or Power BI.
 

Setup Cost

ibi WebFOCUS offers competitive, scalable pricing with a CPU-based license, ideal for enterprises focused on BI and process improvement.
Microsoft Power BI offers flexible pricing, from free to premium, making it a cost-effective business intelligence tool for enterprises.
Oracle OBIEE's high cost and complex licensing can be offset by customizations and negotiated discounts for large-scale use.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
 

Valuable Features

WebFOCUS provides intuitive visualization, robust connectivity, flexible reporting, and reliable scheduling, supporting comprehensive data integration and application development.
Microsoft Power BI excels with seamless data integration, customizable dashboards, and user-friendly features, empowering self-service insights across industries.
Oracle OBIEE offers interactive dashboards, data visualization, secure data merging, and cloud-based architecture for advanced analytics and mobile access.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.
A valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to automate some tasks, such as invoice analysis, saving a significant amount of clerical work.
 

Mindshare comparison

Predictive Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ibi WebFOCUS2.2%
Alteryx16.1%
Anaplan15.5%
Other66.2%
Predictive Analytics
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI20.4%
Tableau15.4%
Amazon QuickSight6.3%
Other57.900000000000006%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle OBIEE3.5%
Microsoft Power BI20.4%
Tableau15.4%
Other60.7%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Twanette Jurd - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence, reporting, data integration, ETL, data migration - everything is handled within one unified platform and highly scalable solution.
WebFOCUS goes beyond just dashboards. It's also used for operational reporting, making it crucial for mission-critical systems. In fact, a core strength is that it's not "just" a BI tool; it can be used to build complete applications. It is the best tool because of its all-in-one nature. Data integration, ETL, data migration, everything is handled within the same platform. Then, on the front end, it offers portals, reporting, distributed analysis, and more. For customers who have data in the right structure and right format, the WebFOCUS Designer tool is very powerful. It allows them to create self-service reporting applications.
Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal
Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.
Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Though comprehensive, it is expensive
The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a very comprehensive tool. Oracle OBIEE is a really robust tool for a very large enterprise implementation. Its features in terms of physical data model to logical data model building are all really robust. Though somebody else had developed the tool for the client for whom I used the tool, it was very well done. The data modeling was very well done, and it depends on the person who is executing it, as I hadn't developed it. I had just enhanced it. I had seen whatever my role was, but somebody had initially developed it. It was developed very well. It has a fantastic feature of documenting. When you work with many clients, you see the documentation is always missing, and you end up taking up some other vendor's job. It is usually very hard to figure out technically what was done, what was not done, and where the data is, so the data dictionaries are not up to date, and information documentation is always very poor. Oracle OBIEE has a built-in feature where you can actually create entire documentation of all the data elements and how they are linked, and it throws out HTML documents that are all interlinked, so if you have an entire directory structure, it helps create the document. You can find out which logical model links to which physical table, and it is very easy to identify. There are multiple combinations if you want to identify one particular table and how many models are involved. You just need to click a hyperlink click, and it gives you all the information. If somebody has made any enhancements, you can just regenerate the document as there is a component of the tool that generates the documentation automatically, which is brilliant, I think.
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business134
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise165
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise102
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Information Builders WebFOCUS?
I would rate the pricing a five out of ten, with ten being expensive.
What is your primary use case for Information Builders WebFOCUS?
I use it for supplying and developing business intelligence (BI) solutions, data management and reporting application...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to ass...
What do you like most about Oracle OBIEE?
The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to handle large volumes of data and provide traditional BI f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle OBIEE?
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
 

Also Known As

WebFOCUS
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ace Hardware, AutoZone, Fred Hutch, MasterCard, OFS Brands, PostFinance, Real D, Yellow Pages, ABC Financial, AcuSport, BBVA, Babcock
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
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