Just got home from the MySQL Data Warehousing and BI Birds of a Feather gathering (BoaF). I'm tired, but my mind is on overdrive. 'Tis a great feeling.

First, I want to thank Lance Walter of Pentaho for introducing Clarise and me to the group as publishers of the OSBI Lens on Squidoo, this blog and the OSS wiki.

Clarise and I had a great conversation with Dr. Jacob Nikom of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The conversation ranged from the great Chimay beer that Matt Casters of Pentaho and Lead Architect of KETTLE, brought with him from Belgium, to

• Data Modeling and Relational Algebra/Theory: the integrity of the model
• Bayesian Statistics, Weibull Analysis and Tensor Calculus for mathematical modeling of complex systems [I love it when n-dimensional eigenvalues start floating in front of my eyes]
• Meeting the needs of different types of users: managers, scientists, business folk
• supplementing historical data warehouses with [near] real time data using ESB and dashboards
• data visualization of complex data sets such that the analyses and limitations can be grasped at different levels by different users
• collaboration among distributed workgroups of disparate career backgrounds and cultural pre-dispositions
• use of Second Life and other virtual worlds for collaboration and data visualization
• a calculator is to a computer [think if statment] as a flat file is to a relational database [think where clause]
• early USSR vs. British knock-offs of IBM mainframes
• Complexity as the balance of robustness and fragility

At various times in this discussion, we were joined by Sherman Wood, Director of BI at JasperSoft, and one of the legendary Mondrian developers, Julian Hyde of Pentaho and Mondrian Lead Architect, and Nicholas Goodman Director of BI for Pentaho.

And if you put Nick and dashboards and virtual worlds in the same post, then you have to mention Discoverer meets Duke Nukem.

Jakob, et al, thank you so very much for a great conversation.

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.

Rick Mortensen, CEO of MarvelIT, Inc just wrote us to let us know that they have :

changed the name and are not associated with the Open Reports project any longer.

We offer a Dashboard solution that is based on the Apache Jetspeed portal and our unique charting portlets. Using Marvelit DASH - dashboards can be built very easily using the power of SQL and XML.
--taken from an email by Rick Mortensen

Take a look at their demo.