May 12 – Software developers have been challenged to display advanced analytics inside their applications, but until recently, embedding features beyond basic reporting was unavailable to most developers, especially those with small project budgets. In light of this, SAP created the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer in the Cloud Web service. Based on SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, a groundbreaking new search and navigation software, this on-demand version provides developers with a simple application programming interface (API) that lets them embed the solution within their applications and create mash-ups from their own data sets.

SAP sponsored a contest that challenged the developer community to create and demonstrate the most innovative use of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer APIs inside of another application or process. The challenge was a great success, and SAP received a large number of high-quality submissions.

Today, SAP is proud to announce the winners:

First Prize: Antivia
Antivia created a unique solution, built on top of its current technologies that integrates functionalities from Xcelsius and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence software to create a dashboard any business executive could envy.

Watch the video demo.

Runner-Up: Zementis
Zementis combined on-demand, high-performance processing for predictive algorithms through its Adaptive Decision and Predictive Analytics (ADAPA) scoring engine on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) with the visualization functionalities of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. In its demonstration, Zementis calculated and compared the average risk for each bank that sold loans to Freddie Mac between 2006 and 2009.

Watch the video demo.

Runner-Up: Ed Herman and Brian Dennett from Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive created an innovative, yet practical solution. The core is a reusable advanced business application programming (ABAP) API class that turns internal tables into new SAP BusinessObjects Explorer datasets. The solution also integrates with custom tables, list reports, and master data management (MDM) for key performance indicators (KPI) reporting and an application that linked directly into the SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management component.

Runner-Up: Derek Papesch of Osaka, Japan
In this solution, Derek Papesch started with call-center software that was only able to provide analytics in Microsoft Excel, which previously made analyzing high volumes of data a very slow and limiting process. In response, Derek created "Icicle" – a small Java program that downloads the data, cleanses the data, and uploads it into SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. With the application, Derek demonstrated how quickly one can find interesting trends and gain insight into where call-center improvements are needed.

Watch the video demo. The password is "polestar."