The frantic first week of June that marked an outright internecine war in the ERP space, seems to have been somewhat repeated in the second half of July, but this time in the business intelligence (BI) market. While one could find some elements of similarity (e.g., market share bolstering and cross-selling opportunities) with the ongoing raging consolidation in the overall enterprise applications market (particularly in the mature ERP segment), the onset of consolidations in the BI market still has much more to it than meets the eye.
One group of reasons would lie in different current evolutionary states between ERP and BI markets (i.e., the mature and highly penetrated first vs. the still fragmented and far from being saturated latter), while the others would come from peculiar factors, such as Microsoft's intended foray into the reporting sector of the broader BI market with its recent unveiling of SQL Server Reporting Services, slated for a foreseeable future and forcing those directly affected (particularly its still quite involved partner Crystal Decisions) to make defensive moves. Hence, Crystal, with already interesting genesis (see Seagate Software 'Crystallizes' Its New Name: Crystal Decisions) and particularly successful recent past, had recently announced its IPO intentions for ~$172 million, and it was also logical to expect acquisition suitors to start knocking on the door.
In any case, while ERP and analytics have been inseparable ever since the idea of business automation via the IT a way back in the 1960s, they have had different user experiences, evolutionary paths, and so on. Namely, although ERP systems have positively transformed many enterprises' business processes, many users have still been left feeling as oversold to, due to the overwhelming notion that these systems inhibit access to the vital information jailed' in them. Often indeed, in most traditional ERP systems a number of financial activities are grouped together to form artificially created processes, which bear not much resemblance to the actual business activities, i.e., ERP systems' focus had often appeared to only be getting the correct figures into the general ledger and create a transactional glut.
Contrary to it, the BI applications have not experienced the "boom-and-bust" cycle of the adjacent application areas, and their need has been neither over- nor under-hyped. Business intelligence provides an environment in which business users receive information that is reliable, consistent, understandable and easily manipulated (i.e., flexible). Therefore, C-level executives and middle management have always had a need to understand their business' performance regardless of good or bad economic times while the output from BI might change, the need is always there. Particularly the recent massive demise of dot-com's, the depressed economic times, and the stringent Sarbanes-Oxley reporting regulatory requirements following up the high-profile corporate fraud scandals (e.g., Enron and WorldCom) have additionally increased executives' focus on understanding and managing corporate performance. Given that the BI tools have neither been terribly complex nor expensive to deploy, but have still been helpful in facilitating decision-making process, they have lately become considered necessary rather than only a luxury. Also, decisions are nowadays increasingly made at ever lower levels in organizations.
One group of reasons would lie in different current evolutionary states between ERP and BI markets (i.e., the mature and highly penetrated first vs. the still fragmented and far from being saturated latter), while the others would come from peculiar factors, such as Microsoft's intended foray into the reporting sector of the broader BI market with its recent unveiling of SQL Server Reporting Services, slated for a foreseeable future and forcing those directly affected (particularly its still quite involved partner Crystal Decisions) to make defensive moves. Hence, Crystal, with already interesting genesis (see Seagate Software 'Crystallizes' Its New Name: Crystal Decisions) and particularly successful recent past, had recently announced its IPO intentions for ~$172 million, and it was also logical to expect acquisition suitors to start knocking on the door.
In any case, while ERP and analytics have been inseparable ever since the idea of business automation via the IT a way back in the 1960s, they have had different user experiences, evolutionary paths, and so on. Namely, although ERP systems have positively transformed many enterprises' business processes, many users have still been left feeling as oversold to, due to the overwhelming notion that these systems inhibit access to the vital information jailed' in them. Often indeed, in most traditional ERP systems a number of financial activities are grouped together to form artificially created processes, which bear not much resemblance to the actual business activities, i.e., ERP systems' focus had often appeared to only be getting the correct figures into the general ledger and create a transactional glut.
Contrary to it, the BI applications have not experienced the "boom-and-bust" cycle of the adjacent application areas, and their need has been neither over- nor under-hyped. Business intelligence provides an environment in which business users receive information that is reliable, consistent, understandable and easily manipulated (i.e., flexible). Therefore, C-level executives and middle management have always had a need to understand their business' performance regardless of good or bad economic times while the output from BI might change, the need is always there. Particularly the recent massive demise of dot-com's, the depressed economic times, and the stringent Sarbanes-Oxley reporting regulatory requirements following up the high-profile corporate fraud scandals (e.g., Enron and WorldCom) have additionally increased executives' focus on understanding and managing corporate performance. Given that the BI tools have neither been terribly complex nor expensive to deploy, but have still been helpful in facilitating decision-making process, they have lately become considered necessary rather than only a luxury. Also, decisions are nowadays increasingly made at ever lower levels in organizations.
