SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Lead Business Intelligence Market
The business intelligence, analytic applications and performance management software market grew more than 13 percent last year to pass the $10 billion mark, and SAP (NYSE: SAP), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) led the way, according to Gartner.
Gartner analyst Dan Sommer said the economic recovery aided business intelligence (BI) spending. Strategic projects that were put on hold in 2009 left room for open source and data discovery vendors to gain ground, but 2010 saw a return of some of those bigger projects.
“While the trend toward smaller projects in business units continues, 2010 saw some of the delayed and prolonged strategic discussions finally close, giving those vendors that can do larger scalable projects a boost,” Gartner said.
“BI spending has far surpassed IT budget growth overall for several years, and it is clear that BI continues to be a technology at the center of information-driven initiatives in organizations,” Sommer said in a statement. “Vendors aggressively market their capabilities in this area, so revenue growth is as much a function of vendor push as a demand pull.”
The BI, analytics and performance management market grew 13.4 percent to $10.5 billion in 2010. SAP, Oracle and Microsoft grew even faster, with revenue growth of 16.8 percent, 21.9 percent and 23.6 percent, respectively.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) and SAS posted slower growth than the overall market, up 7.6 percent and 4.7 percent, according to Gartner.
SAP remains the top vendor by market share at 22.9 percent, followed by Oracle at 15.6 percent, SAS at 13.2 percent, IBM at 11.6 percent, and Microsoft at 8.7 percent.
SAP, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft own nearly two-thirds of the market for BI and performance management, while SAS dominates the analytics market.
Gartner noted that “a new wave of lighter footprint data discovery tools and analytic applications are proliferating in business units. Business users care less about who they buy from; they want domain-specific functionality and usability that meet their needs.”
For more on business intelligence, see Social Business Intelligence – What Is It, and Do You Need It? and Ten Great Mobile Business Intelligence Apps.
Paul Ferrill has been writing for over 15 years about computers and network technology. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering as well as a MS in Electrical Engineering. He is a regular contributor to the computer trade press. He has a specialization in complex data analysis and storage. He has written hundreds of articles and two books for various outlets over the years. His articles have appeared in Enterprise Apps Today and InfoWorld, Network World, PC Magazine, Forbes, and many other publications.