Open Source BI has “quite a ways to go”

Here are a couple of articles that discuss Forrester Research’s latest Wave report on Open Source BI: ComputerworldUK and Formtek. The report makes a couple of key points, which I’ve summarized below.

First, open source BI is not necessarily free. Most vendors in this category have a free (“community”) edition, and a commercial (“enterprise”) one. The editions can have radically different features and capabilities.

Second, open source BI products don’t yet measure up to their closed source competition. The free editions are very limited, like a programming library or watered down version, and even the commercial editions leave much to be desired.