Are there any right answers to the current issue facing BI regarding the relevance of BI for mid sized businesses? Last year all of the big players in the BI space “consolidated”, Hyperion with Oracle, Business Objects with SAP and Cognos with IBM. The spin doctors wrote of leveraging relationships to mine existing revenue possibilities and grow into the fast maturing mid sized space. But last Friday Sage, a global software icon in the mid size space, announced the discontinuation of Sage Intelligent Reports in their stable. Talk about mixed messages from the market! So what are we meant to make of all of this?
“I think the days of BI tools are numbered – particularly in the mid-market,” said Paul Martin who sold out to Sage as recently as 2004 to become Sage Intelligent Reports. He subsequently left to set up a separate mid sized BI business and I am perplexed by this change in outlook on the BI market.
Well, I’m afraid I have to fundamentally disagree with the notion of the days of mid sized BI being numbered. On the contrary I believe there is a burgeoning market for vendors willing to spend time to really understand this market and even tweak their traditional models to cater for the shifting profiles of their average users. Bring it on!!!!
