Business Intelligence Software Growth Shows Dramatic Drop In U.S.

Revenue for BI software exceeded $5.1 billion worldwide last year, Gartner said in a report released Thursday. Oracle, SAP, IBM, and Microsoft, meanwhile, have gone from making up just one-fifth of the market to owning two-thirds of it in a year, Gartner noted. That’s largely because Oracle acquired Hyperion, SAP nabbed Business Objects, and IBM acquired Cognos. Microsoft continues to grow in BI primarily from in-house developed software plus a few important smaller acquisitions, such as ProClarity.

Source: www.intelligententerprise.com

BI: The Year in Review

by Stephen Swoyer, a technology writer based in Athens, Ga.

Despite the tumult in the global financial markets, 2008 was relatively calm for BI professionals. In contrast to 2007, when the three biggest BI pure-play vendors (Hyperion, Business Objects, and Cognos) were acquired by larger, non-BI vendors, the year past was a sleepy one. There were the requisite acquisitions, to be sure, but nothing comparable to the domino-toppling wave of consolidation that swept the industry in 2007.

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