Implementing Business Intelligence Standards: Save Money and Improve Business Insight

At the end of last year, I wrote a white paper on implementing business intelligence standards – here’s a blog post that adapts the context (the full white paper is available as a download at the bottom of the post) Executive Summary: Business Intelligence, Essential in a Tough Economic Climate Citing business intelligence (BI) as a strategic technology, analyst firm Gartner observes, “BI can have a direct positive impact on a company’s business... [Read More...]

Business Intelligence Consolidation: Friend or Foe?

Thanks to Shane Schick of Canada’s Globe and Mail, who today reported on “Business intelligence consolidation: friend or foe?” and quoted from this blog: “Timo Elliott, who writes the BI Questions blog at timoelliott.com, went through many of the arguments against standalone BI after Oracle bought Hyperion, but concluded the focus and openness of niche firms were still worth the money. “BI is the final layer between... [Read More...]

IBM Falls off the Fence, and Picks Cognos…

IBM couldn’t take the heat any more — it’s Cognos, for $5bn. It seems they were reluctant up until the last minute, given the recent agreements announced with Business Objects XI bundled with DB2. But faced with being left out of the cold, and with other suitors surely bearing down on Cognos, they bit the bullet…   The only two remaining large BI players are SAS and MicroStrategy, both difficult to purchase: SAS because... [Read More...]

So: it’s SAP, for $6.8bn!

After years of rumors, the news is finally here: it’s SAP for 4.8 billion euros. This will be the biggest acquisition SAP has ever done,  and the biggest in the BI industry. In an interesting twist, it’s almost a Business Objects acquisition — it is proposed that the company be run as a “stand-alone” entity managed by current Business Objects CEO John Schwarz, and the team that looks after previous SAP... [Read More...]