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I asked Howard Dresner for his perspective concerning the rumored sale of Business Objects. And he was kind enough to allow me to share his thoughts as a post here in my blog.
Here is what Howard had to say:
The short answer to the BOBJ article is that, if true, it’s somewhat unfortunate.
The market needs independent business intelligence and performance management vendors that are application, database and platform agnostic. Customer environments are complex and heterogeneous and “pure-play” vendors focus on supporting these environments in a balanced and impartial way. And, while the BI and EPM markets are maturing – they are not mature. My estimate is that penetration for BI within adopting organizations is at the 25 percent level – for users that could benefit from it. EPM is even lower. And, what about those organizations that don’t use either? So, there’s still tremendous opportunity!
What’s driving the acquisition engine? On one hand the BI and EPM markets are red hot. These technologies can add tremendous value – even more then ERP – if implemented properly. Let’s also not forget about the impact that the financial markets have upon public companies. They drive companies to show top and bottom line growth above all else. And, growth for most packaged operational applications has slowed. Large software companies must find new growth engines and BI and EPM represent this potential growth.
So, while it is lamentable that the numbers of pure-plays continues to decline, it’s not the end of the story by any means. For every vendor that is acquired, there are 20 emerging companies offering new approaches, technologies and business models. Many of these are focused upon software-as-a-service (SaaS) and open source. I believe that this will keep the market vibrant and exciting for a long time.
Howard Dresner
Tags: Business Objects, Howard Dresner, Business Intelligence, SaaS,
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