We had an interesting conversation with Rick Mortensen, CEO of MARVELit. He has a long background and a wealth of experience in developing and deploying BI solutions. The MARVELLit open source Dash Portal project came about from his own pain over the years of not being able to quickly and economically deploy BI solutions using the large, complex, expensive closed source BI products. Rick showed us how he does RAD style prototyping over the web using a private, secure demo site, by walking us through such a site he has operating for a current customer. Rick also explained their business model to us, including the use of firm-price, fixed-length engagements, called DASHpaks. Another result of Rick's experience both with BI and with open source, is the company's commitment to documentation. Rick showed us the upcoming documentation wiki, and it already surpasses most open source project documentation that we've seen.

We're going to be doing a series of podcasts with Rick over the next couple of months so he can tell you more in his own words. In the meantime, check out the demo at url.

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