I am not happy to see LucidEra disappearing. It is not a good sign for the SaaS BI market in general and the startups in our space specifically. And I still believe Rob Ashe (IBM/Cognos) was wrong when he said that “BI doesn’t lend itself to SaaS”.

There are some fundamental differences between first generation SaaS BI providers and true cloud-based platforms like Good Data. Some of them are technological while others are simply common sense:

• Good Data is based on true cloud architecture
• We use Amazon Web Services to host our multitenant platform and so we have minimal fixed and very low variable costs.
• We are true believers in Steve Blank’s Four Steps to the Epiphany, and the idea of spending over $20M before validating our go-to-market strategy is foreign to us.
• Cookie-cutter pre-built analytics apps are should be the STARTING POINT for customers to try – not the conclusion of an enterprise sales process.
• LucidEra was probably too expensive for small companies and too limited for large ones. And this is why we offer plain-vanilla NetSuite analytics for free.

I am sure we will see the era of success of on-demand analytics. The most useful analogy here is the disruptive business model of low cost airlines – it did not disappear after the demise of People Express airlines either…

PS. Good Data Offers Safe Harbor to LucidEra Customers (link)