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2011 Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study TM YF51811

2011 Edition

Wisdom of Crowds

Business Intelligence Market Study TM

Study Findings and

Analysis Report

May 18, 2011

Dresner Advisory Services, LLC

Licensed to Yellowfin

http://www.business-intelligence-study.com

http://www.business-intelligence-study.com/


http://www.business-intelligence-study.com Copyright 2011 – Dresner Advisory Services, LLC

2

Disclaimer:

This report should be used for informational purposes only. Vendor and product selections should be made

based on multiple information sources, face-to-face meetings, customer reference checking, product

demonstrations and proof of concept applications.

The information contained in the Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study Report is a

summary of the opinions expressed in the online responses of individuals who chose to respond to our

online questionnaire, and does not represent a scientific sampling of any kind. Dresner Advisory Services,

LLC shall not be liable for the content of the Report, the study results, or for any damages incurred or

alleged to be incurred by any of the companies included in the Report as a result of its content.

Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden.




3

A New Era of Business Intelligence Unfolds

Only a short while ago many had proclaimed the demise of the Business Intelligence

marketplace – predicting only a few large suppliers and a dearth of innovation.

Instead, we’ve witnessed a renaissance that has defied conventional wisdom!

Spending for Business Intelligence solutions and services continues to grow – driven by

a more mainstream understanding of its importance and value.

But, unlike the market of a few years ago, Business Intelligence has developed a

broader base – driven by many small and mid-sized organizations from around the

world. This segment will continue to grow at a far faster rate than others for the

foreseeable future.

And, true to its roots, Business Intelligence has re-emerged as business-centric, with

users driving BI purchase and deployment efforts - sometimes in cooperation with IT

and other times independently. This has unleashed the demand for solutions that are

easier to buy, faster to deploy and easier to use. It’s also driven the demand for better

process integration, mobile computing support, in-memory, and collaborative (social)

capabilities – to name a few.

These changes, while welcome, will also be disruptive – both for suppliers and

consumers. As a result, organizations will need to take a more active role in planning,

managing and evolving their BI “portfolios”.

In spite of some challenges, we welcome this new era of Business Intelligence, with the

promise of both innovation and more choices than in the past.

Best,

Howard Dresner – Chief Research Officer

Dresner Advisory Services, LLC




4

Contents A New Era of Business Intelligence Unfolds.................................................................................................. 3

Background: .................................................................................................................................................. 7

About Dresner Advisory Services: ................................................................................................................. 7

Method: ........................................................................................................................................................ 8

Survey Design and Criteria: ....................................................................................................................... 8

Awareness, Recruitment & Data Gathering:............................................................................................. 9

Vendor/Market Categories: ........................................................................................................................ 10

Executive Summary: .................................................................................................................................... 12

Study Demographics: .................................................................................................................................. 14

Figure 1 - Organization Size ................................................................................................................ 14

Figure 2 - Functions Represented ....................................................................................................... 15

Figure 3 - Industries Represented ....................................................................................................... 16

Figure 4 – Geographies Represented ................................................................................................ 17

Analysis & Trends ........................................................................................................................................ 19

Departmental/Functional Alignment with BI Tools: ............................................................................... 19

Figure 5- Business Intelligence Adoption by Function / Time ............................................................. 19

Figure 6 -BI Adoption by Function / Time –North America ................................................................ 20

Figure 7 - BI Adoption by Function / Time – EMEA ............................................................................. 21

Figure 8 - BI Adoption by Function / Time –Rest-of-World ................................................................ 22

Scale of Business Intelligence Deployments: .......................................................................................... 23

Figure 9 – Numbers of Users/Organization: 2010 versus 2011 .......................................................... 23

Numbers of Business Intelligence Tools in Use: ..................................................................................... 24

Figure 10 - Number of BI Tools/Organization: 2011 vs. 2010 ............................................................. 24

Figure 11 – Numbers of Business Intelligence Products by Organization Size ................................... 25

Figure 12 –Numbers of Business Intelligence Products by Vendor Category ..................................... 26

Experience with Business Intelligence: ................................................................................................... 27

Figure 13 – Business Intelligence Deployments/Organization: 2011 versus 2010 ............................. 27

Figure 14 – Business Intelligence Deployments by Industry ............................................................... 28

Figure 15 – Business Intelligence Deployments by Organization Size ................................................ 29

Figure 16 – Business Intelligence Deployments by Vendor Category ................................................. 30




5

Key Related Technologies / Initiatives .................................................................................................... 31

Figure 17 – Related Technologies & Initiative Strategic to Business Intelligence .............................. 31

Figure 18 – Importance of In-Memory Analysis by Vendor Category ................................................. 32

Figure 19 – Importance of Mobile by Industry ................................................................................... 33

Figure 20 – Importance of Big Data by Size of Organization .............................................................. 34

Figure 21 – Importance of Big Data by Region ................................................................................... 35

Figure 22 – Importance of Cloud/SaaS by Function............................................................................ 36

Figure 23 – Importance of Cloud/SaaS by Size of Organization ......................................................... 37

Figure 24 – Importance of Cloud/SaaS by Industry ............................................................................ 38

Figure 25 – Importance of Open Source by Organization Size ........................................................... 39

Figure 26 – Importance of Open Source by Industry .......................................................................... 40

Figure 27 – Business Intelligence Spend by License/Service Type ...................................................... 41

Figure 28 – Departments with Any Business Intelligence Spending ................................................... 42

Figure 29 – Percentage of 2011 BI Spend by Department (among departments with spend) .......... 43

Market Segment Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 45

Figure 30 - Market Segment Alignment - Business vs. IT .................................................................... 45

Figure 31 - BI Market Segment Alignment by Industry ....................................................................... 46

Figure 32 - Market Segment Alignment by Organization Size ............................................................ 47

Figure 33 - Market Segment Alignment by Implementation Age ....................................................... 48

Industry and Vendor Analysis: .................................................................................................................... 50

Scoring Criteria ........................................................................................................................................ 50

Overall Industry Performance ................................................................................................................. 51

Figure 34 – Industry Performance – Sales/Acquisition Experience .................................................... 51

Figure 35 - Industry Performance - Value: 2010 vs. 2011 ................................................................... 52

Figure 36 - Industry Performance: Quality and Usefulness of Products ............................................. 53

Figure 37 - Industry Performance: Technical Support ........................................................................ 54

Figure 38 - Industry Performance: BI Vendor Consulting ................................................................... 55

Figure 39 - Industry Performance: Recommended ............................................................................. 56

Vendor Stacked Rankings: ........................................................................................................................... 57

Business Intelligence Titans .................................................................................................................... 57

Figure 40 - Business Intelligence Titans - Stacked Rankings ............................................................... 58




6

Established Pure-play Business Intelligence Vendors ............................................................................. 58

Figure 41 - Business Intelligence Established Pure-plays - Stacked Rankings ..................................... 58

Emerging Business Intelligence Vendors ................................................................................................ 59

Figure 42 – Business Intelligence Emerging Vendors – Stacked Rankings .......................................... 59

Open Source Business Intelligence Vendors ........................................................................................... 59

Figure 43 – Open Source Business Intelligence Vendors – Stacked Rankings .................................... 60

Detailed Vendor Scores:.......................................................................................................................... 60

Figure 44 - Sample Vendor Detailed Scoring Chart ............................................................................. 61

Figure 45 – Actuate/BIRT Detailed Score ............................................................................................ 62

Figure 46 – Dimensional Insight Detailed Score ................................................................................. 63

Figure 47 - IBM/Cognos Detailed Ranking .......................................................................................... 64

Figure 48 - Information Builders Detailed Score ................................................................................. 65

Figure 49 - Jaspersoft Detailed Score .................................................................................................. 66

Figure 50 - Microsoft Detailed Score .................................................................................................. 67

Figure 51 - MicroStrategy Detailed Score ........................................................................................... 68

Figure 52 - Oracle Detailed Score........................................................................................................ 69

Figure 53 - Pentaho Detailed Score .................................................................................................... 70

Figure 54 – PivotLink Detailed Score ................................................................................................... 71

Figure 55 - QlikTech Detailed Score .................................................................................................... 72

Figure 56 - SAP/Business Objects Detailed Score ............................................................................... 73

Figure 57 - SAS Institute Detailed Score.............................................................................................. 74

Figure 58 - Tableau Detailed Score ..................................................................................................... 75

Figure 59 - Tibco/Spotfire Detailed Score ........................................................................................... 76

Figure 60 - Yellowfin Detailed Score ................................................................................................... 77

Appendix - The Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Survey Instrument............................... 78




7

Background: In April 2010, Dresner Advisory Services published its inaugural, landmark Wisdom of

Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study ™ with the intent of offering a fresh and

objective view of the market by giving “a voice” to those actually using Business

Intelligence (BI) solutions.

In it we explored the perceptions, intentions and realities surrounding the Business

Intelligence market from a number of perspectives and helped to shed light on current

and emerging market dynamics.

At that time we conceived our trademark 32-criteria vendor evaluation model and

ranked 15 Business Intelligence vendors.

In addition to broad market acceptance, we received acknowledgement and acclaim

from the press, including InformationWeek, TechTarget, Smart Data Collective, ebizQ,

TDWI, Intelligent Enterprise, ITBusinessEdge, and Information Management.

The overwhelming success of this initial project formed the basis for the annual

publication of this study.

About Dresner Advisory Services: The Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study™ was conceived, designed

and executed by Dresner Advisory Services, LLC - an independent advisory firm - and

Howard Dresner, its President, Founder and Chief Research Officer.

Howard Dresner is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and

Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He

has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution –

Business Results through Insight and Action (John Wiley & Sons – Nov. 2007) and

Profiles in Performance – Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change

(John Wiley & Sons – Nov. 2009). He lectures at forums around the globe and is often

cited by the business and trade press.

Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as Chief Strategy Officer at

Hyperion Solutions and was a Research Fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business

Intelligence research practice for 13 years.

Howard has conducted and directed numerous in-depth primary research studies over

the course of the past sixteen years and is an expert in analyzing these markets.




8

Our most recent market studies include the DAS Mobile Business Intelligence Market

Studies and the widely acclaimed, annual Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence

Market Study ™.

Method: Using a straightforward and easy to complete online survey instrument (see appendix)

we focused upon a host of market-related questions and our trademark 32 criteria

vendor and product scoring.

The study was opened for input to any valid users with first-hand BI vendor and product

experience. Although specific vendor selections were listed, any vendor or product

could be entered.

As this is our second year of conducting this study, we were able to provide a number of

year-over-year comparisons from 2010 to 2011.

Survey Design and Criteria:

Survey criteria were designed to elicit first-hand and real-world user experiences with

Business Intelligence and associated vendors and products:

Survey criteria included the following market topics:

- Budget allocations by department/function

- Spend by license and service type

- Key related technologies

- Vendor characterization

- Use of latest software version

- Open Source: community versus commercial

Vendor/product scoring criteria included:

- Sales/acquisition experience – 8 criteria

- Value for price paid (Excellent – Poor)

- Quality and usefulness of product – 12 criteria

- Quality of technical support – 5 criteria

- Quality and value of consulting services -5 criteria

- Whether vendor is recommended (Yes/No)




9

In addition, the following demographics were captured:

- Title, Function, Industry, Size of company, Geography

- Numbers of BI products being used, Vendor, Product

- Length of time product has been in use, Numbers of users of product

See Detailed Vendor Rankings and the Appendix for more detail on study criteria.

Awareness, Recruitment & Data Gathering:

To publicize the study and garner support, we aggressively leveraged social media sites

(e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook), the press and existing email. Strong support was

received from all corners, including key press: BusinessIntelligenceEdge, Information

Management, ITBusinessEdge, TechTarget, and numerous blogs and re-tweets.

Vendors were also allowed to direct customers to the study.

To ensure that input was from actual users, we rejected any responses that could not

be validated. Additionally, surveys completed by vendors or their agents were deleted.

Approximately 10% of the sample was discarded.

After final data quality processing, the total number of respondents in the sample was

630, an increase of 40% over 2010.




10

Vendor/Market Categories: For the purposes of this report, we have created four different BI industry sub-

categories in which to group vendors and analyze market behavior and direction. As in

2010, these include the “Titans”, “Established Pure-play”, and “Emerging” vendors. This

year we have added “Open Source” BI vendors as a fourth category.

Titans are the largest vendors, with extensive product and service offerings – including

Business Intelligence. In all cases these vendors have acquired Business Intelligence

vendors (e.g., Oracle and Hyperion, IBM and Cognos, SAP and BusinessObjects).

Vendors in this category include: IBM/Cognos, Microsoft, Oracle and

SAP/BusinessObjects.

Established Pure-Play BI vendors are predominately focused upon Business

Intelligence software and services and have typically been in business for 15 or more

years - with well established customer bases and revenue streams. Several are publicly

held concerns. These include Information Builders, MicroStrategy, QlikTech and The

SAS Institute.

Emerging BI vendors are typically younger than other categories and offer unique and

often innovative business models, technologies and/or services. This category includes:

Dimensional Insight, PivotLink, Spotfire (Tibco), Tableau and Yellowfin. The vendors

Arcplan, Birst, and Good Data also belong in this category, but could not be ranked due

to small numbers of completed surveys.

Open Source BI vendors have all adopted an open source approach to Business

Intelligence, offering both a “community” (free) and “commercial” editions of their

product(s). These include Actuate, Jaspersoft and Pentaho. Jedox (Palo) is also an

open source BI vendor, but was not included in the rankings due to the small number of

completed surveys.




11

Executive

Summary




12

Executive Summary:

Functional alignment within organizations for Business Intelligence continues to shift.

Most notably, in North America, business users appear to be increasingly driving BI

adoption. We believe that the trend towards business-dominated BI is a global trend,

with other geographies lagging behind North America by several years.

The “natural” size of the BI workgroup appears to be settling at between 6 – 50

users – larger than in 2010. The shift away from extremely large BI deployments,

noted in 2010, continues in 2011. The numbers of (overlapping) BI tools continues to

grow – especially in the largest organizations and those using tools from “Titans”.

Users employing Commercial Open Source BI were less likely to have multiple BI

tools.

The numbers of new Business Intelligence deployments appears to have slowed in

2011 compared with 2010, with growth coming from expansion of existing

deployments. Decreases were pronounced in Financial Services, for nearly all size

organizations, and for Established Pure-play vendors. Highest new deployment rates

were found in Government and Technology verticals, and Open Source and

Emerging vendor segments.

Among the most important related technologies/initiatives was “Integration with

operational processes”, “Data mining and advanced algorithms” and “In-memory

analysis”. Other technologies showed demand in specific segments including

“Mobile”, Big Data”, “Open Source”, and “Software-as-a-Service”.

A total of 63% of respondents reported budget increases in at least one BI area and

31% of respondents had increases of more than 10% in at least one area. Growth in

spending for 2011 will favor traditional Business Intelligence software licenses,

followed by services from BI vendors and third parties. Finance was the function that

had budget allocated most frequently for BI, but IT and Sales had the largest

allocation within most organizations.

Of the four Business Intelligence sub-segments, all but Emerging products are

adopted predominately by the IT function. Titans and Established Pure-plays have

the broadest distribution across all organization sizes, while Open Source and

Emerging vendors were more dominant in smaller ones. And, Open Source and

Emerging vendors appear to have the youngest customer bases – with the largest

percentage of adoption within the past 2+ years.




13

Study

Demographics




14

Study Demographics:

As with last year, our goal was to obtain a balanced base of survey respondents in

order to create a truly representative sample – and thereby more accurately reflecting

market sentiment.

This year’s sample has a similar distribution to last year with the smallest organizations

comprising 27% of the sample and the largest with 21%. However, there was some

modest shifting within the middle with organizations between 5,001 and 10,000 growing

from 5% to 8%, and those between 1,001 – 2,000 decreasing from 8% in 2010 to 6% in

2011.

Figure 1 - Organization Size

27%

29%

8%

10%

5%

21%

27% 27%

6%

10%9%

21%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1 - 100 Employees

101 - 1,000 Employees

1,001 - 2,000 Employees

2,001 - 5,000 Employees

5,001 - 10,000 Employees

More than 10,000

Employees

Number of Employees

2010 2011




15

We were quite pleased to see far greater business user/management participation in

2011 versus 2010. This year the IT Department comprised 50% of the overall sample

versus 61% in 2010 (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - Functions Represented

61%

12%

7%

1%

8%11%

50%

10%8%

6% 6%

17%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Information Technology (IT)

Sales and Marketing

Finance Operations Research and Development

(R&D)

Other

Function

2010 2011




16

As with last year we have similar distribution across multiple industries, with strong

representation from key industries including: Retail & Wholesale, Healthcare, and

Financial Services.

Figure 3 - Industries Represented

12% 12%11%

10%

15%

6%

4%

30%

13%12% 12% 12%

14%

6%5%

27%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Consulting Financial Services

Health Care Retail & Wholesale

Technology Manufacturing Government Other

Industry

2010 2011




17

Strong responses from around the world (Figure 4) have given a broad and more global

perspective to the study. In contrast to 2010, we had stronger participation in 2011 from

North America and EMEA and somewhat less from other geographies. We also had a

large enough sample this year to break out Australia and New Zealand from APAC.

Figure 4 – Geographies Represented

57%

7%

22%

14%

61%

2%

26%

7% 5%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

North America Latin America EMEA Asia-Pacific Australia-NZ

Geography

2010 2011




18

Analysis

& Trends




19

Analysis & Trends

Departmental/Functional Alignment with BI Tools:

Last year we observed a shift from IT alignment (and deployment) of Business

Intelligence, in favor of business management and users. In this year’s study, we see

this trend continuing, with the decline of IT deployments starting ~ 5 years ago and with

organizations – globally – reporting that more than half of deployments are now more

closely aligned with business users and not IT (Figure 5)

Figure 5- Business Intelligence Adoption by Function / Time

As with last year, this apparent trend may be due to reductions in IT Departmental

staffing and budgets during the economic recession. Finance, and its alignment with

Business Intelligence, has remained relatively steady throughout, while Sales &

48%

63%

51% 49% 49%

14%

8%

9%9% 7%

14%

6%

11%12%

9%

25% 24%29% 31%

36%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

More than 10 years

6 - 10 years 3 - 5 years 1 - 2 years Less than 1 year

BI Adoption by Function - All Regions

Information Technology Finance Sales and Marketing Other




20

Marketing appears to have declined. In contrast, “other” functions (e.g., Exec. Mgmt.,

HR, Manufacturing, Operations, R&D, Supply Chain) have grown.

This trend is most pronounced if we look exclusively at North America (Figure 6). Here

we can see that business users have consistently taken charge of Business Intelligence

for the past 5+ years.

Figure 6 -BI Adoption by Function / Time –North America

This may account for the myriad of tools that have emerged in recent years, which cater

to users – in many cases sidestepping the IT Department. In particular, we see very

strong growth in adoption by “Other” business functions.

55%

69%

53%47% 44%

12%

10%

9%

7%4%

6%

2%

10%

15%

7%

27%19%

28% 32%

44%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

More than 10 years 6 - 10 years 3 - 5 years 1 - 2 years Less than 1 year

BI Adoption by Function - North America





21

In contrast, both EMEA (Figure 7) and Rest-of-World - e.g., APAC, LATAM (Figure 8)

appear to favor IT-based BI deployments more than in North America.

Figure 7 - BI Adoption by Function / Time – EMEA

While this trend appears to have leveled off in EMEA, IT-driven deployments of

Business Intelligence appear to be on the rise in other parts of the world.

30%

48% 47%51% 50%

20%

5% 8%

11%11%

40%

19% 16%6%

14%

10%

29% 29% 31%25%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


BI Adoption by Function - EMEA





22

Our interpretation of this data is that all geographies are moving towards business-

dominated BI. However, EMEA and ROW are lagging behind North America by several

years.

Figure 8 - BI Adoption by Function / Time –Rest-of-World

0

50% 50% 52%58%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


BI Adoption by Function - Rest of World


Key Takeaways: Functional alignment within organizations for Business Intelligence

continues to shift. Most notably, in North America, business users appear to be

increasingly driving BI adoption. We believe that the trend towards business-

dominated BI is a global trend, with other geographies lagging behind North America

by several years.




23

Scale of Business Intelligence Deployments:

In last year’s report we noted a “paradigm shift in the industry – away from large

implementations and in favor of smaller or moderately sized ones”.

In comparing deployment data from 2010 with that from 2011 we see a continuation of

this trend, with extremely large deployments in apparent decline (Figure 9). However,

we also observe that a new “center of gravity” for deployment size may be emerging –

with sizes of between 6 – 50 increasing and the smallest (1-5) decreasing. This trend

offers a glimpse of what future BI group sizes will look like.

Figure 9 – Numbers of Users/Organization: 2010 versus 2011

20.0%

9.1%

7.8%

12.9% 12.9%

9.8%8.6%

6.4%

12.4%

17.3%

11.0%

8.3%

16.1%

11.1%

9.5% 9.1%

5.6%

12.0%

0%

10%

20%

30%

1 - 5 6 - 10 11 - 20 21 - 50 51 - 100 101 - 200 201 - 500 501 -1,000

More than 1,000

Numbers of BI Users/Organization: 2010 vs. 2011

2010 2011




24

Numbers of Business Intelligence Tools in Use:

For quite some time we’ve observed the growing proliferation of multiple Business

Intelligence tools, predominately within the largest of organizations (Figure 10). With the

growing presence of products which cater to business users and departmental

functions, it would appear that the numbers of tools within many organizations will

continue to expand. And, as we noted last year, these statistics understate the issue, as

many users are unaware of all the tools being used within their organizations.

Figure 10 - Number of BI Tools/Organization: 2011 vs. 2010

36%

39%

24%26%

47%

27%

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

One Two or Three Four or More

Number of BI Tools/Organization: 2010 vs. 2011

2010 2011




25

Like in 2010, the largest organizations tend to have the great variety of Business

Intelligence tools (Figure 11). This has occurred over time as departmental/functional

groups have invested in BI tools without the benefit (or knowledge) of corporate

standards or even what other functions might be using. In fact, we found that in some

instances multiple respondents from the same companies thought that their tool was the

only one.

As budgets shift away from IT and towards end user departments, these numbers will

continue to rise. Of course, with common semantics, metadata and data warehousing,

this might not be as much of an issue. From my experience, however, this is not the

approach that most are taking. As a result, enterprises can expect the age-old problem

of multiple and conflicting answers to business questions.

Figure 11 – Numbers of Business Intelligence Products by Organization Size

23%

35%30%

22%15% 17%

43%

45%

45%

46%

44%46%

25%

11%18% 30%

36% 28%

9% 9% 8%3% 5%

9%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall 1 - 100 101 - 1,000 1,001 - 2,000 2,001 - 5,000 5,001 - 10,000

Numbers of BI Products by Size of Organization

One Two or Three Four or more Don't Know




26

When looking at numbers of tools by vendor category (Figure 12), we were interested to

learn that Commercial Open Source BI users were less likely to have multiple tools. In

contrast, BI users, with software from Titan vendors, were much more likely to have

multiple tools. Of course Titan vendors typically serve the largest of organizations –

which also have the greatest numbers of tools. And, (not surprisingly) “Emerging” BI

users were more likely to be unaware of how many tools were in use in the

organization.

Figure 12 –Numbers of Business Intelligence Products by Vendor Category

23%

13%

32%25%

21% 19%

43% 61%

42%

44%44%

37%

25%

26%18%

19% 27%

35%

9% 8% 12%8% 8%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall Open Source Community

Open Source Commercial

Emerging Pureplay Titan

Numbers of BI Products by Vendor Category

One Two or Three Four or more Don't Know

Key Takeaways: The “natural” size of the BI workgroup appears to be settling at

between 6 – 50 users – larger than in 2010. The shift away from extremely large BI

deployments, noted in 2010, continues in 2011. The numbers of (overlapping) BI tools

continues to grow – especially in the largest organizations and those using tools from

“Titans”. Users employing Commercial Open Source BI were less likely to have

multiple BI tools.




27

Experience with Business Intelligence:

In order to better understand the growth of the industry, we take a closer look at the age

of Business Intelligence deployments (Figure 13).

In 2010, we saw an unusually large number of new BI deployments – most especially in

small and mid-sized organizations. Since that time, these implementations have shifted

to the 1-2 years category, with stability in the 3 - 10+ year categories.

Most notable is an apparent decline in new implementations for 2011 over 2010, with

much of the market growth coming from the expansion of existing implementations.

Figure 13 – Business Intelligence Deployments/Organization: 2011 versus 2010

25%

16%

32%

18%

9%

19%

25%

31%

16%

9%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Less than 1 year 1-2 years 3-5 years 6-10 years More than 10 years

BI Deployments/Organization - 2010 vs. 2011

2010 2011




28

For 2011, almost all industries seem to be implementing fewer new Business

Intelligence solutions than in 2010 (Figure 14). The substantial growth last year –

especially within SMEs – has created the larger base which is now expanding the

numbers of BI users for 2011.

The largest declines in new implementations are within the Financial Services and

Technology industry segments. The exceptions to this are Manufacturing and

Government – the two (apparent) growth segments for 2011.

Figure 14 – Business Intelligence Deployments by Industry

19% 19%14%

18%

9%

20%27% 25% 23%

25% 28%

23%

26%

12%

40% 24%

18% 23%

31% 25%

34%

29%

36%

24%

24%46%

33%

16%

14%18%

21%

25%

8%

18%

4%

17%

9%15%

11%7%

18%

7% 6% 7%4%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall Consulting Financial Services



BI Deployments by Industry

Less than 1 year 1 - 2 years 3 - 5 years 6 - 10 years More than 10 years




29

As we can see from Figure 15, there was substantial growth in 2010 implementations

for small and mid-sized organizations. Although lower in 2011, these organizations

continue to implement BI at an above-average rate. The exception is organizations

between 5,001 and 10,000 employees where growth of deployments appears to have

doubled over 2010 – especially in Healthcare and Government.

Figure 15 – Business Intelligence Deployments by Organization Size

19% 22% 24%

16%

8%

31%

10%

25%

31% 26%

16% 30%

15%

18%

31%

28% 31%

30%

34%

29%

34%

16%10%

12%

27%

21% 13%

26%

9% 10%6%

11%7%

12% 12%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall 1 - 100 101 - 1,000 1,001 - 2,000 2,001 - 5,000 5,001 - 10,000 More than 10,000

BI Deployments by Organization Size





30

When looking at deployments by vendor category (Figure 16), Open Source and

Emerging vendors saw above average new deployments for 2011, with Titan and

Established Pure-play categories experiencing below average numbers of new

deployments.

Figure 16 – Business Intelligence Deployments by Vendor Category

19%26%

21%

12% 15%

24%

38%

23%

19%19%

31%

28%

29%

30%

36%

16%

5%

17%

19%

23%

9%3%

10%

19%

7%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall Open Source Emerging Pureplay Titan

BI Deployments by Vendor Category


Key Takeaways: The numbers of new Business Intelligence deployments appears to

have slowed in 2011 compared with 2010, with growth coming from expansion of

existing deployments. Decreases were pronounced in Financial Services, for nearly

all size organizations and for Established Pure-play vendors. Highest new

deployment rates were found in Government and Technology verticals, and Open

Source and Emerging vendor segments.




31

Key Related Technologies / Initiatives

This year we opted to expand our study to include substantially more market data and

analysis. In this section we explore technologies and initiatives which are deemed

strategic to respondents’ Business Intelligence efforts. In all, we asked about nine

areas, as noted in Figure 17.

Topping the list of importance (by mean average), is “Integration with operational

processes”, “Data mining and advanced algorithms” and “In-memory analysis”. Those

technologies & initiatives deemed less important were Open Source, Software-as-a-

Service and Big Data.

Figure 17 – Related Technologies & Initiative Strategic to Business Intelligence

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Open source software

Software-as-a-service and "cloud computing"

Big data

Ability to write to transactional applications

Mobile device support

Collaborative support for group-based analysis

In-memory analysis

Data mining and advanced algorithms

Integration with operational processes

Importance of Related Technologies

Unimportant Somewhat Important Very Important Critical




32

Where significant, we created crosstab analyses, using key demographics to better

understand the importance of related technologies.

In Figure 18, we examine the importance of In-memory analysis (number 3 out of 9) by

the various vendor market categories. We found that users of Commercial Open Source

and Established Pure-play BI products were more likely to view this feature as critical or

important. In contrast, there was less interest in in-memory analysis within the Titan and

Community Open Source BI customer bases.

Anecdotally, the Finance function favored in-memory analysis over other functions.

Figure 18 – Importance of In-Memory Analysis by Vendor Category

15%

28%

14% 13% 10%

21%

38%

34%

34% 39%

33%

42%

34%

38%

33%

36%

38%

28%

13%19%

12%18%

9%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall Open Source Community

Open Source Commercial

Emerging Pureplay Titan

Importance of In-Memory Analysis by Vendor Category





33

Although not a top priority overall (number 5 out of 9), Mobile computing holds the

greatest importance to the Retail & Wholesale vertical industry (Figure 19). We can

confirm this as a result of our own recent Mobile BI research and case studies.

Other vertical industries that view Mobile Business Intelligence as important include

Technology and Consulting.

In contrast, Healthcare, Financial Services, and Government view Mobile as less

important.

Anecdotally, the Executive and Sales & Marketing functions have the most interest in

Mobile BI.

Figure 19 – Importance of Mobile by Industry

19%

10%

27%

37%

13% 13%21%

26%18%

42%

43%

44%

44%

38% 35%

45% 37%47%

26%

35%

15%

11%

28% 34%

21%33% 28%

12% 13% 14%7%

21% 18%12%

4%8%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%




Importance of Mobile by Industry





34

Although a lower priority overall (7 out of 9), Big Data holds greater interest for the

largest organizations of 10,000 employees or more (Figure 20). Not surprisingly, small

and mid-sized organizations have the least interest in Big Data.

Anecdotally, R&D, as a function, has the most interest in Big Data.

Figure 20 – Importance of Big Data by Size of Organization

33%38% 40%

29%37% 37%

16%

28%

29%32%

26%

23% 24%

27%

27%

25%21%

26%

32%25%

39%

11%8% 8%

18%

8%14%

18%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall 1 - 100 101 - 1,000 1,001 - 2,000 2,001 - 5,0005,001 - 10,000 More than 10,000

Importance of Big Data by Size of Organization





35

Big Data appears to hold the greatest interest in Asia and Latin America, followed by

North America (Figure 21). It has lower interest in EMEA and Australia/NZ. This

phenomenon may be due to the close alignment of Big Data with Open Source

technologies such as Hadoop and MapReduce, which have high acceptance outside of

North America.

Figure 21 – Importance of Big Data by Region

33%

3%

38%

13%

33%

55%

28%

28%

25%

38%

30%

23%

28%

53%

29%

38%

25%

16%

11%17%

8%13% 12%

6%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall Asia- Pacific EMEA Latin America North America Australia-NZ

Importance of Big Data by Region





36

Although a somewhat lower order priority to respondents (8 out of 9), Cloud and

Software-as-a-Service generate a great deal of “buzz” in the marketplace. As we can

see in Figure 22, it seems to resonate more so with the Sales & Marketing function than

all others. The Finance and IT functions are less inclined. This is (presumably) due to

concerns surrounding security, privacy and control.

Figure 22 – Importance of Cloud/SaaS by Function

34%40%

29%

19%

30%

36%

35%50%

40%

32%

19%

16%15%

26%24%

11% 8% 6%

15% 14%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Overall Information Technology

Finance Sales & Marketing Other

Importance of Cloud by Function





37

As expected, smaller organizations appear most interested in Cloud and SaaS in

relation to Business Intelligence (Figure 23). This is likely due to anticipated cost

savings and rapid implementation times, which are features most often ascribed to

cloud-based solutions.

With few exceptions, larger organizations are less inclined to embrace Cloud/SaaS

Business Intelligence solutions.

Figure 23 – Importance of Cloud/SaaS by Size of Organization

43%

34%

43%

34%

60%

50% 48%

29%

29%

27%

51%

28%

22%31%

20%

24%

21%

11%12%

18%

18%

8%13%

10%3% 0%

10%3%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Importance of Cloud by Size of Organization





38

When examining interest by industry, the Technology vertical was by far the most

interested in Cloud/SaaS BI solutions (Figure 24). In sharp contrast, Government, Retail

& Wholesale and Financial Services had the lowest level of interest.

Figure 24 – Importance of Cloud/SaaS by Industry

34%28%

42%37% 38%

17%

30%

48%

37%

36%

38%

35%

33%

45%

23%

43%

44%

36%

19% 28%

17%

21%

12%

26%

20%

4%

18%

11%8% 6% 9%

4%

34%

7% 4%9%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%




Importance of Cloud by Industry





39

Although the initiative with the lowest level of general interest (9 out of 9), it had higher

interest within small and mid-sized organizations (Figure 25). In contrast, larger

organizations tended to have less interest in Open Source BI.

Anecdotally, among functions, R&D had the stronger interest in Open Source BI.

Figure 25 – Importance of Open Source by Organization Size

43%

34%

43%

34%

60%

50% 48%

29%

29%

27%

51%

28%

22%31%

20%

24%

21%

11%12%

18%

18%

8%13% 10%

3% 0%

10%3%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Importance of Open Source by Size of Organization





40

When looking at open source BI by industry (Figure 26), the Technology and

Government verticals had the strongest interest. Financial Services and Retail &

Wholesale had among the lowest interest.

Figure 26 – Importance of Open Source by Industry

43% 43%48%

34%

48%

30%

48%41%

49%

29% 31%

29%

41%

27%

24%

23% 37%28%

20% 20%18%

18% 20%

25%

23% 7%

19%

8% 6% 5% 7% 5%

20%

6%15%

4%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%




Importance of Open Source by Industry


Key Takeaways: Among the most important related technologies/initiatives was

“Integration with operational processes”, “Data mining and advanced algorithms” and

“In-memory analysis”. Other technologies showed demand in specific segments

including “Mobile”, “Big Data”, “Open Source”, and “Software-as-a-Service”.




41

Budget and Spend Plans and Trends

This year we expanded our study to include budget and spending plans (Figure 27). To

this end, we asked about increases in expenditures by different classes of solutions and

the allocation of budget by function. These include traditional BI software licenses,

Open Source BI, Software-as-a-Service BI, and services from BI software vendors and

third party providers.

Figure 27 – Business Intelligence Spend by License/Service Type

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Trad

itio

nal

BI S

W

Op

en S

ou

rce

BI S

W

SaaS

BI

Serv

ices

fro

m S

W V

en

do

r

Serv

ices

fro

m 3

rd P

ty

Oth

er

Spend by License/Service Type

More than 10% Increase

10% Increase

5% Increase

5% Decrease

10% Decrease

More than 10% Decrease




42

The majority of increase in spending will be allocated to traditional software licenses

(Figure 28). This doesn’t come as a surprise since this has been the dominant model for

decades. This category is also seeing the greatest decline. In contrast, Open Source

and SaaS BI are seeing important, albeit, modest investment.

Additionally, 63% of respondents reported budget increases in at least one BI area.

31% of respondents had BI budget increases of more than 10% in at least one area.

Those respondents were more than twice as likely to be using their current product for

less than one year (and less likely to be using it for more than 5 years). They were also

more likely to think that software-as-a-service or cloud computing is important. There

were no differences by vendor category, region, industry, function, or size.

There is also very strong demand (and increased spending) for consulting services –

most especially from the BI software vendors, followed by independent professional

service providers. Having spoken to a number of vendors, they have shared that

customers are increasing their demand for services. This phenomenon can be

explained by at least two factors: smaller deployments growing into more complex and

larger deployments and user-based deployments continuing to expand – without the

needed assistance of an internal IT function.

Figure 28 – Departments with Any Business Intelligence Spending

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Manufacturing

Distribution

Human Resources

Research and Development

Marketing

Sales

C Level Executive

IT Department

Finance

Departments with BI Budget Allocations

Spend




43

When examining budgets, the Finance function, followed by IT, C-Level Executives, and

Sales were most often allocated some percentage for Business Intelligence (Figure 28).

When we look more closely (Figure 29), we see that IT will receive the lion’s share of BI

budget for 2011, followed by Sales, Finance, R&D and C-Level Executives.

The lowest BI budget allocations were for Human Resources and Distribution.

With the shift towards business deployment of BI, we expect that budget allocations will

change accordingly.

Figure 29 – Percentage of 2011 BI Spend by Department (among departments with spend)

86.1%

77.0%

72.1%

71.4%

68.9%

69.2%

58.5%

53.5%

53.1%

11.1%

14.8%

21.0%

22.0%

17.5%

13.2%

27.7%

33.1%

18.8%

2.8%

8.1%

6.9%

6.6%

13.6%

17.6%

13.8%

13.4%

28.2%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Human Resources

Distribution

Marketing

Manufacturing

C Level Executive

Research and Development

Finance

Sales

IT Department

Percent of 2011 BI Spend by Department

1% to 20% 21% to 40% 41% or more

n= 309

n= 159

n= 325

n= 286

n= 269

n= 135

n= 233

n= 91

n= 144

Key Takeaways: A total of 63% of respondents reported budget increases in at least

one BI area and 31% of respondents had increases of more than 10% in at least one

area. Growth in spending for 2011 will favor traditional Business Intelligence software

licenses, followed by services from BI vendors and third parties. Finance was the

function that had budget allocated most frequently for BI, but IT and Sales had the

largest allocation within most organizations.




44

Market

Segment

Analysis




45

Market Segment Analysis For the purpose of analysis and rankings, vendors have been grouped into four

categories, based on general market profiles. These categories are: “Titans”,

“Established Pure-plays”, “Emerging” vendors and “Open Source” vendors.

Titans include the largest global enterprise software vendors with Business Intelligence

offerings. Established Pure-play vendors include larger vendors that are primarily

focused upon Business Intelligence software and solutions. Emerging vendors may fall

into one of several categories, including SaaS, visualization tools, desktop tools, etc.

Open Source BI vendors subscribe to a “community” model – offering some software

components at no cost, with a “commercial” offering available for a fee.

When examining alignment by corporate function, the Emerging segment has the

highest percentage of business adopters versus all other categories (Figure 30). In

contrast, all other segments seemed most aligned with the IT function.

Figure 30 - Market Segment Alignment - Business vs. IT

61%

37%

62%55%

8%

7%

10%

6%

6%10%

4%

13%

7%13%

32% 28%

40%

25% 26%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Vendor Category by Function

Other

Sales and Marketing

Finance

Information Technology




46

When examining the market from an industry perspective, the inclination towards one BI

segment over the other is less well defined (Figure 31).

Figure 31 - BI Market Segment Alignment by Industry

The Financial Services segment appears to favor Established Pure-play vendors, while

Healthcare aligns most closely with Emerging vendors. Retail & Wholesale have

adopted Established Pure-plays, followed by Emerging vendors, while the Technology

vertical has strong adoption of Open Source. In Government there appears to be a split

preference for both Established Pure-plays and Open Source BI.

13% 13% 12% 10%19%

12% 14%

6%17%

14%

12% 8%17%

6%

9%

13%

9%

16% 18%8%

14% 25%14%

9% 9%

6%5% 6%

4% 6%

5%

9%3%

9%3%

27%20%

25% 27%32%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Vendor Category by Industry

Other

Government

Manufacturing

Technology

Retail & Wholesale

Health Care

Financial Services

Consulting




47

Figure 32 - Market Segment Alignment by Organization Size

When looking at size of organization (Figure 32), Titans and Established Pure-play

products are distributed across a wide range of organization sizes – and are dominant

in the largest organizations. In contrast, Emerging and Open Source BI products have a

strong concentration of adoption within small and mid-sized organizations and in a

minority of larger organizations.

27%33% 35%

17% 18%

27%

43%

30%

16%21%

6%

4%

2%

17% 6%

10%

7%

9%

15%

13%

9%

7%

8%

11%

8%

21%

7%

17%

25%

35%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


Vendor Category by Organization Size

More than 10,000

5,001 - 10,000

2,001 - 5,000

1,001 - 2,000

101 - 1,000

1 - 100




48

If we look at the market segments by the age of the implementation, it appears that

Open Source and Emerging BI vendors have the youngest base of customers, with the

largest percentage of implementations within the last 3 years. In contrast, Titans and

Established Pure-play vendors have a more mature base of customers, with the

majority implemented more than 3 years ago.

Figure 33 - Market Segment Alignment by Implementation Age

26%21%

12% 15%

38%

23%

19%19%

28%

29%

30%

36%

5%

17%

19%

23%

3%10%

19%

7%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Open Source Emerging Pureplay Titan

BI Adoption Over Time by Vendor Type

More than 10 years

6 - 10 years

3 - 5 years

1 - 2 years

Less than 1 year

Key Takeaways: Of the four Business Intelligence sub-segments, all but Emerging

products are adopted predominately by the IT function. Titans and Established Pure-

plays have the broadest distribution across all organization sizes, while Open Source

and Emerging vendors were more dominant in smaller ones. And, Open Source and

Emerging vendors appear to have the youngest customer bases – with the largest

percentage of adoption within the past 2+ years.




49

Industry

and

Vendor

Analysis




50

Industry and Vendor Analysis: In this section we will review Business Intelligence vendor and market performance,

using our trademark 32-criteria evaluation model.

Scoring Criteria

The criteria for the various industry and vendor rankings are grouped into six categories

including Sales/acquisition experience, Value for price paid, Quality and usefulness of

product, Quality of technical support, Quality and value of consulting, and whether

vendor is recommended. The detailed criteria are as follows:

- Sales/acquisition experience

o Professionalism

o Product Knowledge

o Understanding business/needs

o Responsiveness

o Flexibility/Accommodation

o Business Practices

o Contractual terms and conditions

o Follow up after the sale

- Value for price paid (Excellent – Poor)

- Quality and usefulness of product

o Robustness/sophistication of technology

o Completeness of functionality

o Reliability of technology

o Scalability

o Integration of components within product

o Integration with 3rd party technologies

o Overall Usability

o Ease of installation

o Ease of administration

o Customization and Extensibility

o Ease of upgrade/migration to new versions

o Online forums and documentation

- Quality of technical support

o Professionalism

o Product Knowledge

o Responsiveness

o Continuity of personnel

o Time to resolve problems

- Quality and value of consulting services

o Professionalism

o Product Knowledge

o Experience

o Continuity

o Value

- Whether vendor is recommended (Yes/No)




51

Overall Industry Performance

In this section of the findings, we examine the performance of the entire Business

Intelligence software industry, using our 32-criteria model.

When examining the Sales/acquisition process at an industry level (Figure 34), the

areas of greatest satisfaction include Sales product knowledge, and professionalism.

The areas of lowest Sales satisfaction include Contractual terms and conditions, Follow

up after the sale and Understanding business needs. These scores are in line with the

findings for 2010 – suggesting limited progress.

Figure 34 – Industry Performance – Sales/Acquisition Experience

5.4%

7.6%

4.7%

5.7%

4.0%

5.5%

1.7%

2.7%

33.5%

23.8%

29.2%

26.9%

25.9%

21.7%

18.1%

16.0%

36.3%

38.4%

37.0%

34.8%

41.2%

35.9%

39.6%

35.3%

23.2%

27.9%

28.4%

31.2%

27.8%

35.2%

39.9%

45.4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Contractual terms and conditions

Follow-up after the sale

Understanding our business/needs

Flexibility/Accommodation

Business Practices

Responsiveness

Professionalism

Product Knowledge

Sales/Acquisition Experience

Very Poor Poor Adequate Very Good Excellent




52

For the Value dimension, we compared current user responses with those from 2010. In

2011, users reported greater value from their Business Intelligence solutions, than in

2010 (Figure 35).

Figure 35 - Industry Performance - Value: 2010 vs. 2011

This increase in perceived value is likely due to the maturation of the many new 2010

implementations – now yielding greater value than in their very early stages.

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

2010 2011

Value for Price Paid: 2010 vs. 2011

Great Value

Good Value

Poor Value

Very Poor Value




53

Taking a look at industry performance related to product (Figure 36), the areas of

greatest satisfaction include: Robustness/Sophistication of technology, Scalability and

Overall Usability. The areas of lowest satisfaction include Integration with 3rd party

technology, Online training, forums and documentation and Customization and

Extensibility. These scores are in line with the findings for 2010 – suggesting limited

industry progress.

Figure 36 - Industry Performance: Quality and Usefulness of Products

6.6%

7.7%

4.1%

7.9%

6.0%

3.1%

5.5%

3.6%

2.6%

3.7%

2.6%

1.8%

34.6%

32.8%

32.6%

26.5%

27.5%

24.1%

25.2%

23.8%

21.3%

18.9%

21.4%

19.1%

34.6%

32.7%

36.9%

33.6%

35.1%

48.1%

34.7%

40.1%

43.7%

42.8%

41.3%

44.2%

22.4%

25.5%

24.6%

29.3%

30.4%

24.2%

33.6%

31.5%

32.2%

34.0%

34.5%

34.4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Integration with 3rd party technologies

Online training, forums and documentation

Customization and Extensibility

Ease of upgrade/migration to new versions

Ease of administration

Completeness of functionality

Ease of installation

Integration of components within product

Reliability of technology

Overall usability

Scalability

Robustness/Sophistication of technology

Quality and Usefulness of Product





54

For 2011, Product knowledge and Professionalism were the two top areas of customer

satisfaction for Technical Support (Figure 37). This was also the case in 2010 when

Professionalism was in first place. At the bottom of the list are Time to resolve problems

and Continuity of personnel – two areas that continue to dog the industry.

Figure 37 - Industry Performance: Technical Support

7.0%

5.8%

4.6%

2.1%

3.5%

27.6%

22.7%

22.2%

19.1%

18.0%

37.7%

35.5%

35.6%

36.9%

35.7%

26.4%

34.8%

36.5%

41.8%

42.4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Time to resolve problems

Continuity of Personnel

Responsiveness

Professionalism

Product knowledge

Technical Support





55

For 2011, there was no change in the industry’s perceived performance for BI software

vendor consulting services (Figure 38). The areas of greatest satisfaction include

consultant Product knowledge and Professionalism. Areas of greatest dissatisfaction

include Value for the price and Continuity of consulting personnel.

Figure 38 - Industry Performance: BI Vendor Consulting

5.8%

4.7%

2.6%

2.2%

2.4%

26.4%

24.4%

19.1%

18.9%

16.1%

37.9%

36.0%

41.2%

41.0%

39.9%

27.7%

32.9%

36.0%

36.7%

40.5%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Value

Continuity

Experience

Professionalism

Product knowledge

Consulting Services





56

On a more positive note, respondents were more likely to recommend their BI software

vendor in 2011 than in 2010 (Figure 39). For 2011, only 5% said that they would not

recommend their vendor versus 9% in 2010.

Figure 39 - Industry Performance: Recommended

9%5%

91%95%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2010 2011

Recommend: 2010 vs. 2011

No Yes




57

Vendor Stacked Rankings: In this section we offer stacked rankings of Business Intelligence software vendors.

Vendors were ranked using 32 different criteria, on a 5-point scale for each. Criteria

covered sales /acquisition experience (8), value for price paid (1), technology/product

(12), technical support (5), consulting services (5) and whether they would recommend

this vendor (1). The result is a stacked ranking with an average score for every one of

the six categories and an overall average score for each vendor.

As we begin to explore vendor performance in more detail, it’s important to understand

the scale that we used in scoring the industry and vendors:

5.0 = Excellent

4.0 = Very Good

3.0 = Adequate

2.0 = Poor

1.0 = Very Poor

Vendors have been organized into “Titans”, “Established Pure-Plays”, “Emerging” or

“Open Source” categories. Within each of these groups vendors have similar traits and,

as a result, similar score-average ranges. Average scores range from the highest (4.00

- 4.57) in “Emerging” to the lowest with the “Titans” (3.30 – 3.71), with “Established

Pure-Plays” (3.55 – 4.29) and “Open Source” (3.83 – 4.15) in the middle. So, while

comparisons can (and no doubt will) be made between these sub-segment “peer

groups”, it’s not always a reasonable comparison.

Based on our scoring methodology, all vendors performed at a level that is considered

more than “adequate” for all categories of criteria.

*Please note that “Average Score” is the mathematical mean of all items included in

vendor ratings. Each column in the chart represents a scale consisting of varying

numbers of items (for example "Sales" is a scale consisting of 8 items, while "Value" for

price is 1 single item). As such, each column is weighted differently (based upon the

number of items represented and the number of respondents rating those items) in

calculating the overall Average rating. The Average Score cannot be calculated by

simply averaging across the subscale scores.

Business Intelligence Titans

As you might expect, the “Titans” (Figure 40) are the largest vendors, with extensive

product and service offerings – including Business Intelligence. In all cases these

vendors have acquired Business Intelligence vendors (e.g., Oracle and Hyperion, IBM




58

and Cognos, SAP and BusinessObjects). Vendors in this category include:

IBM/Cognos, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP/BusinessObjects.

Figure 40 - Business Intelligence Titans - Stacked Rankings

Established Pure-play Business Intelligence Vendors

“Established Pure-Play” vendors (Figure 41) are focused primarily upon Business

Intelligence software and services and have typically been in business for 15 + years -

with well established customer bases and revenue streams. Several are publicly held.

These include Information Builders, MicroStrategy, QlikTech and The SAS Institute.

Figure 41 - Business Intelligence Established Pure-plays - Stacked Rankings




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Emerging Business Intelligence Vendors

The “Emerging” vendors (Figure 42) are typically younger than the other two categories

and offer unique and often innovative business models, technologies and/or services.

This category includes: Dimensional Insight, PivotLink, Spotfire (Tibco), Tableau and

Yellowfin (new this year). Arcplan, Birst, and Good Data also belong in this category,

but could not be ranked due to the small number of completed surveys.

Figure 42 – Business Intelligence Emerging Vendors – Stacked Rankings

Open Source Business Intelligence Vendors

This year we separated out the Open Source BI vendors into their own category (Figure

43). These vendors include Actuate/BIRT, Jaspersoft and Pentaho. Jedox/Palo also fits

into this category, but could not be ranked due to the relatively small number of

completed surveys.




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Figure 43 – Open Source Business Intelligence Vendors – Stacked Rankings

After you have reviewed the stacked rankings of vendors, carefully examine the

detailed, vendor-specific rankings for a more complete perspective and deeper

understanding of individual vendors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Detailed Vendor Scores:

In this section, we offer detailed vendor scores. Using the 32 criteria from the survey

(Page 50), we compare each vendor’s performance to their direct peer group and to the

average for all vendors (all records in the study population).

In the detailed scores that follow, the criteria begin at the top of each chart with “Sales

Professionalism” and proceed clockwise through “Recommended” (Figure 44).




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Figure 44 - Sample Vendor Detailed Scoring Chart

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Consult Professionalism

Consult Product Knowledge

Consult Experience

Consult Continuity

Consult Value

Recommend

Vendor Average Peers




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Figure 45 – Actuate/BIRT Detailed Score

As a member of the “Open Source” market segment, Actuate/BIRT is in the top position.

Actuate/BIRT exceeded its peer group and the overall sample average for all Technical

Support and Product metrics by a wide margin. In all other areas it was in line with both

the peer and overall sample average. Its 2011 performance improved in the areas of

Sales, Value, and Recommended.

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Recommend

Actuate/BIRT Performance





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Figure 46 – Dimensional Insight Detailed Score

A member of the “Emerging” market segment, Dimensional Insight achieved the same

high score as in 2010, securing the number two spot in the segment for 2011. It

exceeded its peer group and the overall sample for practically all metrics. It was among

an elite few that were recommended by 100% of customer respondents.

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Dimensional Insight Performance





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Figure 47 - IBM/Cognos Detailed Ranking

A member of the “Titan” market segment, IBM/Cognos was generally in line with the

peer average, except for Product where it generally exceeded the peer group. It was

ranked number one in its peer group for Product and Customer Recommendation. Its

2011 performance improved in the areas of Value, Product and Recommended.

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IBM Performance





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Figure 48 - Information Builders Detailed Score

A member of the “Established Pure-Play” market segment, Information Builders

achieved the top position for a second year in a row. It exceeded the peer group

average for virtually all metrics and was above the average for the entire sample. It was

also one of a very few vendors to improve its overall score from 2010 – and especially

in the areas of Value and Support.

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Information Builders Performance





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Figure 49 - Jaspersoft Detailed Score

A member of the “Open Source” market segment, Jaspersoft is in line when compared

to the overall sample and average of its peers - for Sales, most Consulting metrics and

Value. It exceeded its peers in Sales Professionalism, Business Practices and

Contractual Terms and Conditions. For Technical Support it was below both averages.

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Consult Experience

Consult Continuity

Consult Value

Recommend

Jaspersoft Performance





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Figure 50 - Microsoft Detailed Score

A member of the “Titan” market segment, Microsoft is in third place for the second year.

It was average compared to its peers with the exception of Consulting and Technical

Support, where it was above average for its peer group.

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Microsoft Performance





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Figure 51 - MicroStrategy Detailed Score

A member of the “Established Pure-Play” market segment, MicroStrategy was generally

in line with the average for the entire sample and its peer group. It was above both

averages - for several Product metrics: especially Robustness/Sophistication and

Completeness of Functionality. It received the highest Recommended score amongst its

peers.

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MicroStrategy Performance





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Figure 52 - Oracle Detailed Score

A member of the “Titan” market segment, Oracle was ranked number one – overall - for

its segment for 2010. It retains the number one position for 2011. It generally exceeded

the peer average and was ranked number one in its peer group for both Sales and

Value. Its 2011 performance improved in the areas of Sales, Value, and Product.

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Recommend

Oracle Performance





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Figure 53 - Pentaho Detailed Score

A member of the “Open Source” market segment, Pentaho is in the number two position

for this market segment. It was generally in line with its peer group and the overall

sample average. It exceeded both averages for several Sales metrics, and was below

average for several Product metrics.

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Pentaho Performance





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Figure 54 – PivotLink Detailed Score

A member of the “Emerging” market segment, PivotLink maintained the number 4 spot

from 2010. It generally exceeded the overall sample and was at the peer average for

other metrics, except for Product where it was generally below the overall average. It

exceeded the peer and overall averages for a number of Sales metrics.

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PivotLink Performance





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Figure 55 - QlikTech Detailed Score

Beginning this year we moved QlikTech from the “Emerging” to the “Established Pure-

Play” market segment where it is in the number two position. This transition to

Established Pure-Play was due to its recent public offering and substantial growth. As

an Established Pure-Play, QlikTech was generally in line with the sample and peer

average for most criteria. In several areas of Product and Consulting, it exceeded the

peer group and overall sample average.

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QlikTech Performance





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Figure 56 - SAP/Business Objects Detailed Score

A member of the “Titan” market segment, SAP/BusinessObjects generally averaged

below its peers, with the exception of several Sales and Technical Support criteria,

where it was in line with its peer group. Its 2011 performance improved in the areas of

Product and Recommended.

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SAP Performance





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Figure 57 - SAS Institute Detailed Score

A member of the “Established Pure-Play” market segment, The SAS Institute was

generally below average when compared to its peer group and the overall sample. For

several Technical Support metrics, it was in line with the peer and overall sample

averages.

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SAS Institute Performance





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Figure 58 - Tableau Detailed Score

A member of the “Emerging” market segment, Tableau showed strong improvement for

2011, moving from number five in 2010 to the top spot. It exceeded both its peer group

and the average for the overall sample - for nearly every metric - and was among an

elite group recommended by 100% of customer respondents.

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Tableau Performance





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Figure 59 - Tibco/Spotfire Detailed Score

A member of the “Emerging” market segment, Spotfire dropped from the number three

position in 2010 to number five in 2011. It generally exceeded the average for the

overall sample but was generally below its peer average for most metrics. In the area of

Robustness & Sophistication of Technology, it exceeded both the peer and overall

averages.

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Consult Experience

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Recommend

Tibco Spotfire Performance





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Figure 60 - Yellowfin Detailed Score

A new member of the “Emerging” market segment, Yellowfin landed in the number three

spot. It generally exceeded the average for the overall sample and was in line with its

peers for most metrics. Several Sales, Product, and Support metrics were slightly above

both peer and overall averages.

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Yellowfin Performance





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Appendix - The Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Survey

Instrument




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