When I last reviewed Spotfire's Decision Site, I noted that its originality derived from its structure. Spotfire divides the design and analysis cycle into a model that provides a separate, user-appropriate interface for each of three kinds of user: analyst, domain expert, and end-user. The trend continues in the company’s newest offering, Spotfire DXP. DXP is a highly-interactive Windows client that appears on The trend continues in the company’s newest offering, Spotfire DXP. DXP is a highly-interactive Windows client that appears on its way to joining Tableau as a way to successfully push BI/BA efforts out of IT and closer to a largely self-service system.But where Tableau pushes its drag-and-drop interface toward a graphical model, Spotfire is building out its graphics strength with drag-and-drop interface. The result is surprising…in a good way. Put DXP out as a client for Spotfire’s Analytics Server, and one can deploy a versatile BI system based on views pre-built by user role. Even better, authors can design robust in-window narrative help and definition systems that provide sequenced instructions and hints (“guided analyses”) for users playing with interactive graphical output. This helpful feature (shown at right; click to see full screen) makes delivering instructions and explanations to less-sophisticated users simple. And perhaps best of all, you can export non-interactive slide shows for free or for a fee, use an optional runtime “player” that supports the delivery of polished models to users who now don’t need the client to get clear and graphically-rich business intelligence. The filter panel (shown at left; click to see full screen), with its ability to interact through selection or area definition, makes Spotfire DXP analysis quicker and easier for both experienced and novice users.Spotfire DXP advances the product line’s already muscular graphical abilities with slider controls on variables, region selects for drill-down, and a boatload of other intuitive (if not always well-documented by the interface) methods of interacting with the data. I’m very impressed. Spotfire DXP Cost: Starts at $3,000 Platforms: Analytics Server requires Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL, SAS/SHARE, PostregSQL, Sybase, or Informix database; DXP client requires 32-bit Windows Verdict: Spotfire DXP is a very impressive graphical client for interactive BI/BA. If the firm can figure out a way to distribute a free or almost-free version of their player that pushes non-interactive results using dynamic data to a wide mass of users, it might make their offering tops in the field. Technology Industry