Ovum’s new SWOT Assessment: Datawatch Monarch, Version 13 report digs deep under the hood of Datawatch Corporation’s (NASDAQ:DWCH) flagship software to objectively assess its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) in the fast-growing market for desktop-based self-service analytics tools.

“Compared to many vendors that are barely past their start-up roots in the self-service analytics world, Datawatch is a 20 year old data management veteran. The vendor has successfully catered to complex data management challenges at very large clients and its software has been battle-tested in regulated verticals such as financial services and healthcare.” - OVUM

“Datawatch Monarch is the only solution that can automatically extract data trapped in reports, files, web pages and other multi-structured content not accessible to analytics tools,” said Dan Potter, chief marketing officer for Datawatch. “You can quickly prepare and blend this multi-structured data together with data from other sources including Big Data, and traditional relational sources. It enables users to create rich, interactive data-driven solutions to complex business problems at a fraction of the cost and time of a traditional BI project.”

Because handling data from diverse sources is one of the biggest problems impeding analytics, Ovum’s Senior Analyst, Surya Mukherjee, finds that
“Datawatch Monarch addresses a significant concern that we see plaguing self-service analytics vendors – of blending, viewing, and wrangling complex datasets that generate from three or more data sources, none of which have the same schema, update schedules, or even security levels. The product differentiates on the wide variety of sources it can work with (even website scrapes and pdf documents) and on the granular security levels it can provide – battle-tested by years of experience of working with financial data. We believe that with the right technology and system integration partnerships, Datawatch Monarch is ready for accelerated growth.”

The report cites four core strengths of the software in particular that make it ideal for visual analytics, dash-boarding and reporting while working within established governance and mandates around managing data:

• Its ability to provide a full range of integration methods and connectors, differentiating on file systems connections and scraping capabilities

• Its suitability for complex data blending jobs involving multiple disparate sources

• A graphical and easy-to-use interface, even for a new user

• And strong data security and governance capabilities.

“We are pleased that Ovum’s assessment acknowledges the core differentiation for Datawatch which addresses the most significant concerns in the rapidly growing self-service analysis market,” said Potter. “Our ability to handle both the complex data with the same ease as other traditional data is unique and our customers are fully realizing the agility of self-service analytics.”

Ovum’s SWOT reports are an independent assessment of a specific solution or service, examining features and capabilities, SWOT analysis, enterprise deployment considerations, and vendor’s product strategy.

Compared to many vendors that are barely past their start-up roots in the self-service analytics world, Datawatch is a 20 year old data management veteran. The vendor has successfully catered to complex data management challenges at very large clients and its software has been battle-tested in regulated verticals such as financial services and healthcare.