Industry Research

« BSM Is Coming Of Age: Time To Define What It Is | Main | Quality Monitoring Provides Companies With Valuable Business Intelligence »

Business Objects and Firstlogic -- A Clash of Cultures?

Business Objects' planned acquisition of First Logic makes technology sense, but does it make customer sense?

Business Intelligence mainstay Business Objects announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Firstlogic, a long-time provider of data quality solutions.

In recent years, Business Objects has inched its way from the analytics side to the data management side of the data warehouse. Several years ago it acquired data integration technology from Acta, but had chosen to continue partnering its way to data quality. On its own part, Firstlogic has been looking for a home for quite a while. Recently however, Firstlogic backed out of an ill-advised planned acquisition by Pitney Bowes (that had recently acquired Group1, another data quality solution provider).

Although Firstlogic’s technology may fit with Business Objects’ portfolio, how will its customers and employees? Culturally, they couldn’t be further apart from a corporate perspective, with Business Objects based in France and Firstlogic based in the intimate upstate Wisconsin Mississippi river town of LaCrosse. (At least it sounds French.)

Users too seem to find a disparity of experience between the two firms. Evalubase’s ongoing study of the enterprise technology market place shows that Firstlogic could offer Business Objects a boost to its Vendor Respect Index™ (VRI). The VRI is a composite indicator of user satisfaction with vendors as an organization, irrespective of their technology. Business Objects currently maintains a VRI of 70 (out of 100), while Firstlogic has a much stronger VRI of 77.

Although Business Objects’ VRI is above average for business intelligence vendors, Firstlogic leads Business Objects in most vendor respect categories, including: responsiveness, ingenuity, support, sales, licensing practices, and service and training. This means that Firstlogic will need to take measures to maintain the intimacy and respect of their customers, while Business Objects might learn a thing or two from Firstlogic about how to do so.

About Evalubase Research

Evalubase is a market information services firm providing market research, enterprise technology ratings, dynamic peer scorecards, and consulting. The firm's rating measurements are based exclusively on responses from actual technology users. Evalubase helps IT vendors and IT departments optimize decision-making by Telling IT like it is®. Now in its third year, Evalubase’s continuous study of enterprise technology trends offers subscribers access to dozens of live ratings, ROI data, ranked buying criteria, and other key metrics supplied by actual users and implementers. This objective information about vendors, their competitors and their markets can be used to optimize product planning and marketing strategies. Participating business and IT professionals and departments are rewarded with instant, dynamic online scorecards quantitatively comparing their IT portfolio versus peer groups. (www.evalubase.com/getstarted.aspx) Evalubase can be reached via its website at www.evalubase.com.

Share: