SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Actuate Corporation (NASDAQ: BIRT), The BIRT Company™ – delivering more insights to more people than all BI companies combined, today announced they, together with the Eclipse community, have added new connectors and enhancements to the latest version of open source BIRT for developers. BIRT 4.3 is available as part of the just-released Eclipse Foundation’s Kepler Release Train. Freely downloadable through the Eclipse Foundation and on BIRT Exchange, BIRT 4.3 is available immediately.
Of special importance in the age of Big Data, BIRT 4.3 introduces support for the popular NoSQL-style MongoDB and Cassandra databases. MongoDB (from "humongous") is an open source document-oriented database system. It stores structured data as JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas (in the BSON format). Cassandra is an Apache Software Foundation open-source, distributed-database management system. Designed to handle very large amounts of data spread out across many commodity servers, it provides a highly available service with no single point of failure.
BIRT 4.3 provides access to these databases to smooth integration of data into BIRT-created visualizations within business analytic apps, including those built for Big Data. The broad support for Big Data within BIRT, including Hadoop support via HIVE, enables developers to publish content from these sources and extend the value of Big Data to a wider audience in the enterprise.
“Due to ease of use and flexibility, BIRT is an integral part of our data visualization development environment. We can easily develop apps that present data through compelling and intuitive visualizations, plus provide the customization our end-users demand,” said Sai Paravastu, Technical Director for Carrington Associates. “With this new release, we’re able to connect as needed with Big Data sources like MongoDB and Cassandra for those projects that require it.”
BIRT 4.3 also introduces easy access to JavaScript libraries, access to POJO (Plain Old Java Object) data sources, and new emitters for Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint, enabling BIRT users to publish and share information using these popular formats.
Enhanced BIRT developer support at the BIRT Exchange website
Timed with this release of BIRT 4.3, Actuate has renovated the BIRT Exchange developer community website with a new UI and easier to access downloads, blogs and developer events. BIRT Exchange hosts technical forums, sample code and educational articles, as well as links to products, services, training and support that are provided by Actuate and numerous partner vendors to help developers maximize their use of BIRT. The renovated site will offer virtual discussion (user) groups, improved forum features and search capabilities, and enhanced recognition of active BIRT Exchange community members.
Additional resources available at BIRT Exchange help developers meet their customers’ and clients’ requirements for intuitive and informative data visualization. BIRT Exchange hosts technical forums, sample code, articles and blogs; as well as links to products, services, training and support that are provided by Actuate and numerous vendors.
The BIRT ecosystem offers numerous opportunities for developers to make money through BIRT-related products and services. Educational materials, partner options and the Open Marketplace features of BIRT Exchange provide community support for development and marketing of their BIRT based apps.
What is BIRT?
BIRT is an open source Java-based set of data visualization tools and technologies used by business analytics application developers to build highly visual and interactive apps for desktop and web deployment. The first version of open source BIRT – proposed and coded by Actuate engineers as a top-level project of the Eclipse Foundation – became available in 2005. Today, eight short years later, BIRT boasts more than 12.5 million downloads and 2.5 million developers building analytics applications across a broad range of industries including banking and finance, technology, federal and state governments, manufacturing, and healthcare in the US and internationally.
Open Source Eclipse BIRT extended by Actuate’s suite of commercial BIRT-based software
The benefits of using open source Eclipse BIRT for development include reduced app development time; independence from proprietary BI systems; renowned ease of use; ability to create a wider array of applications than with any other development tool; reliability of the apps and their reports/visualizations; and ease of integration into other applications. When developers require managed deployment, security, interactivity, dashboards, scorecards / KPI measures, or mobility, they turn to Actuate’s suite of BIRT-based commercial products.
About Actuate – The BIRT Company™
Actuate founded and co-leads the BIRT open source project, which is used by over 2.5 million developers around the globe and serves as the foundation of the ActuateOne® platform. Applications built on ActuateOne deliver more business and consumer insights to more people than all BI companies combined - ensuring organizations are ready for the exponential growth of Big Data and the proliferation of touch devices.
The ActuateOne platform empowers developers to rapidly develop custom, BIRT-based business analytics and customer communications applications. ActuateOne applications built with one BIRT design can access and integrate any data, including unstructured sources. They provide one user experience regardless of skill level and are supported by one platform for any cloud, hybrid, on-premises, web or touch device deployment.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Actuate has over 5,000 customers globally in a diverse range of business areas including financial services, technology and the public sector. Actuate is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol BIRT. For more information, visit www.actuate.com or engage with the BIRT community at www.birt-exchange.com.
Copyright © 2013 Actuate Corporation. All rights reserved. Actuate, ActuateOne, The BIRT Company, BIRT onDemand, BIRT Analytics, and the Actuate logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Actuate Corporation and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between Actuate and any other company. All other brands, names or trademarks mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.
