Birst Introduces BI Collaboration and Multi-Layer Mapping With Launch of Birst 4 Autumn Release

On-Demand Business Intelligence Solution Delivers More Powerful Dashboards, Detailed Mapping, and Collaboration for Reports and Dashboards


SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - October 5, 2010) - Birst Inc., the leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) business intelligence (BI) and analytics, today announced the availability of Birst 4 Autumn Release. Birst 4 Autumn Release is the latest version of Birst 4, a comprehensive business intelligence solution that delivers rapid deployment and high ROI. The new features made available in the Birst 4 Autumn Release include chat collaboration, multi-layer geo mapping, easily created dashboard environments, and advanced user management.

"The Birst 4 Autumn Release adds a rich new dimension to analysis -- collaboration," said Rob Hienekamp, CEO of Endowance, a Birst partner. "Departments and groups can finally have constructive conversations about reports and results in a transparent, easily tracked way. Instead of trying to manage conversations awkwardly through email, all of the reactions and suggestions about a report are immediately available to everyone who needs it. This harnesses the power of web-enabled social communication for business purposes."

New and Improved Dashboards and Business Visualization

  • Get the whole story with chat collaboration -- Birst users now have the ability to attach a note to a report or dashboard, so that users have complete context about a report. Teams can have a full conversation about analysis and results, with comments tracked in a chat style conversation. 

  • Pinpoint results with multi-layer mapping -- Birst maps now have the capacity for multiple layers of representation, so that cities, stores, offices, individuals, or other attributes can all be simultaneously geo-mapped.

  • Easy branding and customization with dashboard environments -- Quickly and easily "skin" a dashboard environment with unique images, look and feel, or branding requirements. This is of particular interest to Birst partners and OEM customers.

  • Advanced user management interface -- Large deployments now have a more efficient and detailed user management interface, so that ongoing management of thousands of users is even easier.

  • Excel-style calculation capabilities -- A new logical query language now enables business analysts to even more powerful, Excel-style calculations in a report using lookups and the support of statistical functions.

"The Autumn Release brings more context and depth to analysis and reporting -- chat collaboration places business results in their context, multi-layer mapping allows customers to see multiple analysis results on a single map, and dashboards can be set in a desired brand environment," said Stefan Schmitz, Vice President of Products at Birst. "It further demonstrates that Birst not only offers powerful analysis, but an easy to use and manage solution that fits your business needs."

Birst 4 Autumn Release is immediately available to all Birst customers and prospects. For more information, contact sales@birst.com. For OEM and partnership information, contact partners@birst.com.

About Birst
Birst™ is the leading provider of on-demand business intelligence solutions. With its Comprehensive Cloud BI Suite, Birst brings the benefits of fact-based decision-making to a much broader audience by making it affordable, fast, and easy to use. Birst is the winner of the Red Herring Global 100 Award, the TDWI Best Practices Award, and the Web Award for Software Standard of Excellence. Birst customers include Citrix, RBC, Securian, Key Technology, and other leading organizations.

For more information, please visit www.birst.com.

Contact Information:

For more information, contact:
Barbara Lewis
Birst

(415) 644-5400