Jaspersoft, a provider of business intelligence (BI) software, has surpassed a milestone of 100 cloud BI customer deployments, growing at close to 300 per cent year over year.

Officials with Jaspersoft said that the company’s unprecedented success bringing BI to customers in the cloud demonstrates the strength of its BI platform.

Company officials claimed that it also proves its partnership model to be superior to other companies' direct SaaS (News - Alert) deployment models, which have not gained similar traction. To expand its success and offerings around cloud BI, Jaspersoft launched two new initiatives: a cloud-focused partnership program and a free trial of its BI platform in the cloud.

"If there is one thing we have learned since engaging our first cloud customer three years ago, it's that there is a right way and a wrong way to tackle BI in the cloud," said Brian Gentile, CEO at Jaspersoft, in a statement.

"With over 100 customers, we believe our 'platform and partner' approach is proving to be the best way to deliver BI in the cloud. Other vendors have had challenges selling cloud-based BI as a platform directly to end-user customers, forcing them to switch their focus to domain-specific BI applications,” said Gentile.

He said that the company’s focus has been to provide a best-in-class BI platform for the cloud and let the partner channel, including SaaS ISVs and system integrators, bring the domain expertise to the end-user customer.

“I'm thrilled to see Jaspersoft and its partners at the forefront in this arena," said Gentile

Mark Madsen, president and Analyst at Third Nature said that Jaspersoft's partnership approach to cloud BI sets them up to incorporate new technologies at any time and gives them the flexibility to change as consumers' cloud BI needs change.

Madsen said that though cloud computing is still in its early stages, Jaspersoft's strategy puts them in a good position to adapt moving forward.

According to company officials, Jaspersoft was one of the first BI providers to address BI in the cloud over three years ago, and later partnered with RightScale, a cloud management provider, and Full 360, a business intelligence and cloud consulting firm.

The joint success resulted in Jaspersoft winning the prestigious SIIA 2010 CODiE award for "Best Cloud Infrastructure Platform".

Jaspersoft's BI platform is based on a modern, flexible, standards-based architecture that is built from the ground up to support multiple deployment options. Jaspersoft's rich web APIs and true multi-tenancy capabilities make it easy for partners to integrate in order to quickly deliver BI-enabled cloud applications to their customers.

Company officials said that to meet growing demand for cloud BI, Jaspersoft is introducing a newly expanded partner program for ISVs and global SIs who want to leverage the Jaspersoft BI platform in the cloud for faster, more affordable reporting, analysis, and dashboarding.

Partners joining this program can benefit from Jaspersoft's Cloud BI experience as well joint sales and marketing activities focused on this area.

The company also launched Jaspersoft Live that is a cloud-based trial environment that gives business intelligence users a true reporting, analysis, and dashboarding experience.

Users receive free access to all Jaspersoft Enterprise BI Suite features without having to install any software. 

Karl Van den Bergh, vice president of product Strategy at Jaspersoft said that Jaspersoft recognizes there's growing cost incentives to shift to the cloud.

Bergh said that both business managers and BI end-users looking at cloud BI options want to see the instant-on functionality of Jaspersoft's BI platform, and Jaspersoft Live provides the proving ground for what a low-cost, yet full end-to-end BI cloud deployment can do.