Blog: Craig Schiff

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Latest on Business Objects and Hyperion/OutlookSoft suit

In the past few weeks I have received new information on several topics I've blogged about recently. Regarding the Hyperion vs. OutlookSoft lawsuit: not only was it decided in OutlookSoft's favor, but Hyperion's patents were declared invalid. Big win for OutlookSoft. On the topic of Analyst Brain Drain: I am happy to report that John Van Decker, formerly of META Group and The Robert Frances Group, has been named VP of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) at Gartner. For the continued success of Performance Management I think it is important that the lead BPM/CPM analyst at the leading analyst firm 'gets it', and he certainly does. On the topic of Business Objects Acquisition of ALG: after meeting with them I have a better sense of where they are going. They clearly see Enterprise Performance Management (as they insist on calling it) as a key engine for growth and are investing in it. The ALG piece of the puzzle is focused on helping clients with profitability analysis, something we see as one of the focus areas of the next wave of BPM. In addition, they have an incentive compensation module which we see growing in importance, and also as a differentiator from some of the other big players in the space. Lastly, they have restructured their sales force moving away from the less than effective matrix model they had followed since their acquisition of SRC Software. They will now have two parallel sales forces: one focused on BI and IT, the other on EPM and business users. This is better than what they had, but I would hope it is just a transitional step to a fully educated, fully unified salesforce.

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