SAS, Oracle lead BI

Johannesburg, 10 May 2007

SAS and Oracle have emerged as clear business intelligence (BI) market leaders, according to independent market analyst firm Datamonitor.

While the leaders are well placed to maintain their position, the BI space is replete with other vendors that could challenge the current leaders, says Datamonitor in its new report, "Decision Matrix: Selecting a Business Intelligence Vendor".

In what Datamonitor expects to be a market worth $7.9 billion globally by year-end 2012, the stakes are clearly high.

Datamonitor says it has developed the Decision Matrix to help businesses select vendors based on their technology strength, reputation among customers, and impact in the market. Conclusions are based on a quantitative assessment of end-user sentiment, the capabilities of the business intelligence solutions on offer and technology features.

Market leaders

Based on its technology assessment, end-user sentiment and market impact, SAS is the clear BI market leader, says Datamonitor. SAS offers a portfolio of both basic and advanced functionality, backed up by a dependable support capability.

Oracle has successfully integrated its recently acquired BI expertise and, as a result, it has managed to exert itself within the BI market. However, if one considers its user-base, commanding presence in the global applications market, and a comprehensive yet flexible BI solution, Oracle's lead position comes as no surprise.

Up to challenge

The report reveals several players that are all capable of challenging the SAS and Oracle duopoly, should market conditions change.

According to Datamonitor, Business Objects and Cognos are in the best position to improve, although Datamonitor notes both need to recover some of the momentum lost during platform re-engineering.

SAP provides a comprehensive solution, but it needs to capture a larger share of the non-SAP market if its position is to change, while IBM requires further addition of certain functional areas if it is to compete with the most successful BI vendors. Although Microsoft falls much further behind, Datamonitor believes its BI strategy is still evolving and it may be a much more important player in the medium to long term.

"BI has been transformed from a specialist technology to a ubiquitous tool deployed at the operational frontline," says Vuk Trifkovic, Datamonitor technology analyst and author of the study.

"This puts a premium on vendors' ability to provide a comprehensive solution that is able to serve a single version of a BI solution through a myriad channels and to all levels of an organisation."