Enterprise BI Platforms

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The Fo este W e™: E te p iseB si ess I te ige e P t o s,Q4 2010b Bo is E e so

o B si ess P o ess P o essio s

http://www.forrester.com/



© 2010, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. In ormation is based on best availableresources. Opinions refect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar,and Total Economic Impact are trademarks o Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property o their respective companies. To purchase reprints o this document, please email clientsupport@ orrester.com . For additional in ormation, go to www. orrester.com.

Fo B si ess P o ess P o essio s

ExEcuTIvE SummaryIn Forrester’s 145-criteria evaluation o enterprise business intelligence (BI) plat orm vendors, we

ound that IBM Cognos, SAP BusinessObjects, Oracle, In ormation Builders , SAS, Microso , andMicroStrategy led the pack because o the completeness o not just BI, but overall in ormationmanagement unctionality. Actuate came out as a Strong Per ormer on the heels o the Leaders o eringequal — or in some cases superior — BI unctionality, but it mostly relies on partners or the rest o itsin ormation management capabilities. IBCO Spot re also came out as a Strong Per ormer o ering topchoices or analytics, even surpassing other Strong Per ormers in the overall in ormation managementarena based on its traditional strength in middleware and application integration. Last but not least,Qlik ech and Panorama So ware moved up rom Contenders and into the Strong Per ormers category based on the continuous improvements in their analytical capabilities.

TaBlE OF cOnT EnTSBI Continues To Evolve As The Last Frontier O Competitive Di erentiation

Enterprise BI Plat orms Evaluation OvervieModern Enterprise BI Plat orms Are FunctionRich, Robust, And Scalable

Vendor Profles

Supplemental Material

nOTES & rESOurcESFo este o d ted de o st tio -b sedp od t e tio s i Feb d m h

2010. E ted e do s i ded a t te,IBm cog os, I o tio B i de s, mi oso t,mi oSt teg , O e, P o So tw e,Q ikTe h, SaP B si essObje ts, SaS, d TIBcOSpotf e.

Related Research Documents“ The Fo este W e™: Ope So e B si essI te ige e (BI), Q3 2010”a g st 10, 2010

“l test BI adoptio T e ds — Sti St o g a d

Goi g B isti”m h 9, 2010

O tobe 20, 2010

The Fo este W e™: E te p ise B si essI te ige e P t o s, Q4 2010IBm cog os, SaP B si essObje ts, d O e le d, With I o tio B i de s,SaS, mi oso t, d mi oSt teg c ose Behi dby Boris Evelsonwith co ie moo e, rob K e , Ho ge Kiske , Ph.D., J es G. Kobie s, d r ph vitti

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mailto:[email protected]


http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46490&src=56280pdf













© 2010, Fo este rese h, I . rep od tio P ohibitedO tobe 20, 2010

The Fo este W e™: E te p ise B si ess I te ige e P t o s, Q4 2010 Fo B si ess P o ess P o essio s

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BI CONTINUES TO EVOLVE AS THE LAST FRONTIER OF COMPETITIVE DIFFERENTIATION

Business intelligence continues to be one o the top enterprise so ware and applications marketsegments where Forrester sees continually increasing interest and adoption levels (see Figure 1and see Figure 2). Ever-increasing data volumes, complex enterprise operations, and regulatory reporting requirements continue to drive demand or BI in the middle (risk management) andback ( nance, HR, operations) o ces. But the major shi is in the increased demand or BI in the

ront o ces (sales, marketing) too, as enterprises that do not squeeze the last ounce o in ormationout o their data stores and applications, and that do not ocus on getting strategic, tactical, andoperational insight into their customers, products, business processes, and operations, risk allingbehind competition. As a result, while the overall so ware market dropped by 8% in 2009, the BIso ware market increased by 15%. 1

Figure 1 ye T e d I The n be O Fo este BI a d BI-re ted I q i ies

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.56280

0

10

20

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J a n - 0 8 F e b - 0

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Inquiry total

Forrester BI and BI-related inquiries since 2008



© 2010, Fo este rese h, I . rep od tio P ohibited O tobe 20, 2010


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Figure 2 BI adoptio T e ds F o 2008 To 2009


Source: Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2009

Base: 921 North American and European IT software decision-makers (2009)Base: 1,015 North American and European IT decision-makers (2008)

(percentages may not total 100 because of rounding)

Business intelligence so tware(e.g., analytics, reporting, data mining, dashboards, business performance management)

“What are your frm’s plans to adopt the ollowing in ormation and knowledge management

so tware technologies?”

Expanding/upgrading implementation

Implemented, not expanding

Planning to implement in the next 12 months

Planning to implement in a year or more

Interested, but no plans

Not interested

Don’t know

30%

24%

16%

9%

14%

6%

2%

11% in 2008, which meansa 227% increase year overyear

30% in 2008, which means a 375%decrease year over year

Key Evaluation Criteria Updates

Forrester o en de nes BI in one o two ways. ypically, we use the ollowing broad de nition:

Business intelligence is a set o methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that trans orm raw data into meaning ul and use ul in ormation used to enable more efective strategic,tactical, and operational insights and decision-making.

But when using this de nition, BI also has to include technologies such as data integration, dataquality, data warehousing, master data management, text, and content analytics, and many othersthat the market sometimes lumps into the in ormation management segment. 2 Tere ore, we alsore er todata preparation and data usage as two separate, but closely linked, segments o the BIarchitectural stack. We de ne the narrower BI market as (see Figure 3):

A set o methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that leverage the output o in ormation management processes or analysis, reporting, per ormance management, and in ormation delivery.

With these two de nitions in mind, we updated the criteria or the 2010 Forrester Wave evaluationo the BI market as ollows:





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· We ocused on data usage, while giving credit to the data preparation unctionality. Te2010 Forrester Wave evaluation, similar to the 2008 process, emphasized pure play or data usage

unctionality. However, we also gave due credit or the built-in eature sets and/or integrationwith the in ormation management or data preparation capabilities.

· We evaluated a ew new eatures that our clients have inquired about over the past two years. While the majority o the criteria remained the same rom the 2008 evaluation — a testament tohow much the BI market is still evolving, where only ew eatures have become commoditized —we have also responded to the latest market trends and added the ollowing new evaluationcriteria: nonmodeled exploration, sel -service BI, and analytical per ormance management andmaster data management (MDM). 3 Some o the older trends that we identi ed prior to 2008, suchas SaaS and appliance orm actors, advanced analytics, and BI with a search-like UI, also made itinto the 2010 model.

Figure 3 B o d a d n ow Def itio s O The BI m ket Seg e t


BI (as in the narrow de nition)

Data warehousing

Master data management

Data quality

Data integration Reporting

Broad

(entire data-to-insight process,which includes data preparation)

Narrow

(last steps in the decision-making process,which is mostly data usage)

Ad hoc querying

Analytics

Dashboards

Advanced (predictive) analyticsOperational BI

Process, context, text analytics

In-memory analytics

ENTERPRISE BI PLATFORMS EVALUATION OVERVIEw

o assess the state o the enterprise BI plat orms market and see how the vendors stack up againsteach other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses o top enterprise business intelligenceplat orm vendors.

Evaluation Criteria: Current O ering, Strategy, And Market Presence

A er examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, wedeveloped a comprehensive set o evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 145 criteria,which we grouped into three high-level buckets:





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· Current o ering. o assess product strength, we evaluated each o ering against our groups o criteria: architecture, development environment, and unctional and operational capabilities.

· Strategy. We reviewed each vendor’s strategy and considered how well each vendor’s plansor product enhancement position it to meet uture customer demands. We also looked at thenancial and human resources the company has available to support its strategy, and its go-to-

market pricing and licensing strategy.

· Market presence. o establish a product’s market presence, we combined in ormation abouteach vendor’s nancial per ormance, installed customer base, and number o employeesacross major geographical regions, its partnership ecosystem, as well as horizontal and verticalindustry applications.

Evaluated Vendors Must Meet Architecture, Functionality, and Scalability CriteriaForrester included 11 vendors in the assessment: Actuate, IBM Cognos, In ormation Builders,Microso , MicroStrategy, Oracle, Panorama So ware, Qlik ech, SAP BusinessObjects, SAS, and

IBCO Spot re. Each o these vendors has (see Figure 4):

· At least three o the our major unctional BI components. Even though our current listo typical and advanced BI capabilities exceeds 20 items, we only included vendors that haveat least three o the ollowing our major components that are critical or large enterprise BIenvironments: production/operational reporting, ad hoc querying, OLAP, and dashboards. 4

· Te ability to query databases using SQL and MDX. While other querying technologies suchas XQuery and DMX are available, SQL and MDX are used most widely in large enterprises.

· A sel -contained, complete, ully unctioning BI environment. We ocused on generic BItools, not technologically or unctionally tied or limited to particular unctional/horizontalapplications (ERP, SCM, etc.). Tese tools must be sel -contained, complete BI environments orplat orms that do not have to be necessarily embedded in other applications.

· Su cient market presence and interest rom Forrester clients. We included vendors with atleast 100 in-production customers present in more than one major geographical region, withmore than 10% enterprise-grade, cross-line-o -business installations with more than 100 users.

We also ocused on vendors that Forrester clients requently mentioned or asked about in thecontext o business intelligence.

· Signi cant BI revenues. Finally, we ocused on vendors with at least $50 million in BI revenues.





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Figure 4 E ted ve do s: P od t I o tio a d Se e tio c ite i

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

VendorActuate

IBM

Information Builders

Microsoft

MicroStrategy

Oracle

Panorama Software

QlikTech

SAP

SAS

TIBCO Spot re(TIBCO Software)

Product(s) evaluatedActuate BIRT

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

WebFOCUS

SQL Server 2008 R2

MicroStrategy

Oracle Business Intelligence

NovaView

QlikView

SAP BusinessObjects

SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence

TIBCO Spot re Analytics

Product version

evaluated11

8.4.1

8

2008 R2

9 Release 2

11g

6.2

9

XI 3.1

4.2

3.1

Version

release dateSeptember 2010

October 2009

April 2010

May 2010

January 2010

August 2010

June 2010

May 2009

October 2008

February 2009

March 2010

Vendor selection criteriaAt least three of the four major functional BI components. Even though our current list of typical andadvanced BI capabilities exceeds 20 items, we only included vendors that have at least three of the

following four major components that are critical for large enterprise BI environments: production/operational reporting, ad hoc querying, OLAP, and dashboards.

The ability to query databases using SQL and MDX. While other querying technologies such as XQueryand DMX are available, SQL and MDX are used most widely in large enterprises.

A self-contained, complete, fully functioning BI environment. We focused on generic BI tools, nottechnologically or functionally tied or limited to particular functional/horizontal applications (ERP, SCM,etc.). These tools must be self-contained, complete BI environments or platforms that do not have to benecessarily embedded in other applications.

Su cient market presence and interest from Forrester clients. We included vendors with at least 100in-production customers present in more than one major geographical region, with more than 10%enterprise-grade, cross-line-of-business installations with more than 100 users. We also focused onvendors that Forrester clients frequently mentioned or asked about in the context of business intelligence.

Signi cant BI revenues. Finally, we focused on vendors with at least $50 million in BI revenues.





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MODERN ENTERPRISE BI PLATFORMS ARE FUNCTION-RICH, ROBUST, AND SCALABLE

Our evaluation uncovered a market in which (see Figure 5):

· IBM Cognos, SAP BusinessObjects, Oracle, and SAS continue to lead the pack. All o the2008 Leaders maintained their overall positions, once again con rming the ull commitmentby their corporate senior executives to BI. All scores hit within a ew decimal points o eachother, but under the covers they are quite di erent. IBM Cognos rolled out Cognos 8 onSystem z and is busy integrating with the recently acquired SPSS, bringing traditional andadvanced analytics closer together — all in a direct challenge to SAS traditional strengths. 5 SAPBusinessObjects continues to steamroll with innovative products like Explorer and in-memory analytical appliance — Business Warehouse Accelerator. Oracle has built new metadata-levelOBIEE 11g integration with Fusion Middleware and Fusion Apps and continues to di erentiatewith its versatile ROLAP engine (a distinction shared only with MicroStrategy). SAS, the largest

privately held so ware company, leverages its advantage o organically grown — with very ewacquisitions — unctionality with a seamlessly integrated BI plat orm.

· In ormation Builders, Microsof, and MicroStrategy move into the Leaders category. Teleadership space in the Wave just got more crowded with In ormation Builders, Microso ,and MicroStrategy taking their well earned position among the Leaders. In ormation Builderscontinues to provide a very respectable alternative to the so ware behemoths, as the only midsize vendor to o er a nearly ull BI stack unctionality. Microso closed some o theprevious gaps with acquisitions o data quality and MDM technologies, and now leveragesSharePoint success and ubiquity as a critical component o a BI plat orm. And MicroStrategy earned the extra recognition with its new multisourcing and in-memory ROLAP capabilities.

· IBCO Spot re and Actuate maintain their Strong Per ormer status. IBCO Spot reo ers top choices or analytics and even surpasses the other Strong Per ormers in the overallin ormation management arena based on its traditional strength in middleware and applicationintegration. Actuate, a Leader in the 2010 Forrester Wave evaluating open source so ware BI,has revamped its entire plat orm and is now mostly based on open source BIR technology. 6

· Qlik ech and Panorama Sofware move into the Strong Per ormer category. Both vendorsgot a well-deserved Forrester Wave upgrade based on the continuous improvements o theiranalytical capabilities. Qlik ech, which launched a success ul IPO in July 2010, has validated

market need or in-memory analytics and modeless exploration with ongoing competitionrom IBCO Spot re and Microso ’s new PowerPivot product. 7 Panorama So ware provesthat although the market now enjoys new technologies and new approaches to analysis andreporting, MDX-based OLAP is still in high demand and in some cases is all that the businessneeds or certain types o BI use cases.





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Actuate, In ormation Builders, MicroStrategy, Panorama So ware, Qlik ech, and SAS remainindependent, still o ering plenty o BI choices to large stack vendors, and potentially — even highly likely — still eeding the BI M&A urnace.

Tis evaluation o the enterprise BI plat orms market should be a starting point only. We encouragereaders to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to t their individualneeds through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool.

Figure 5 Fo este W e™: E te p ise BI P t o s, Q4 ‘10


Go online to download

the Forrester Wave tool

for more detailed product

evaluations, feature

comparisons, and

customizable rankings.

RiskyBets Contenders Leaders

StrongPerformers

StrategyWeak Strong

Currento ering

Weak

Strong

Market presence

Actuate BIRT

Panorama Software

QlikTech

IBMCognosOracle

Information Builders

SAP BusinessObjects

MicroStrategy

SAS

Microsoft

TIBCOSpot re





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Figure 5 Fo este W e™: E te p ise BI P t o s, Q4 ‘10 (co t.)


CURRENT OFFERINGArchitectureDevelopmentFunctionalOperational

STRATEGYCommitmentPricing and licensingTransparencyProduct direction

MARKET PRESENCECompany nancialsGlobal presencePartnership ecosystemInstall baseFunctional applications

I B M C o g n o s

3.844.154.153.733.23

4.703.203.362.005.00

4.603.104.605.004.305.00

A c t u a t e

B I R T

3.263.264.202.912.87

3.453.602.423.003.50

2.122.203.652.001.301.00

F o r r e s t e r ’ s

W e i g

h t i n g

50%30%20%30%20%

50%0%0%

10%90%

0%0%

30%20%40%10%

I n f o r m a t i o n

B u i l d e r s

3.53

3.61

3.70

3.64

3.09

4.35

4.60

3.58

3.00

4.50

2.26

2.50

3.45

2.00

1.60

1.80

M i c r o s o f t

3.11

3.06

2.90

3.24

3.18

4.25

3.20

1.94

2.00

4.50

3.93

2.80

3.90

5.00

4.30

0.40

M i c r o S t r a t e g y

3.31

3.57

3.30

3.05

3.35

3.90

3.00

3.12

3.00

4.00

2.30

2.80

2.85

2.00

2.00

2.40

O r a c l e

3.64

4.08

2.90

3.88

3.34

4.35

3.20

2.82

3.00

4.50

3.55

3.10

4.15

3.00

3.00

5.00

P a n o r a m a

S o f t w a r e

2.37

2.42

1.90

2.26

2.93

3.253.403.381.003.50

1.681.302.002.001.700.00

Q l i k T e c h

2.812.653.352.782.53

3.451.603.963.003.50

2.893.702.703.003.700.00

S A P

B u s i n e s s O

b j e

c t s

3.823.994.053.673.57

4.253.803.562.004.50

4.813.104.355.005.005.00

T I B C O

S p o t r e

S A S

3.303.702.953.303.04

4.154.402.441.004.50

3.352.803.903.002.705.00

2.992.952.953.282.63

4.053.003.680.004.50

2.091.903.301.001.702.20

All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).

VENDOR PROFILES

While the Forrester Wave graphic may seem to indicate little di erentiation among the leading vendors, in reality that is not the case. Te o erings are quite diverse, each one with its own uniqueset o strengths and weaknesses.

Leaders

· IBM Cognos wants to be your one and only BI provider, rom hardware to desktop. Indeed,between hardware, so ware, and applications, including the o ce apps rom the Lotus suite, and

more than $10 billion in BI-related investments, IBM is the only vendor that can provide one-stop shopping or BI plat orm and tools. Furthermore, IBM GBS, including the newly ormedBAO consulting organization, is uniquely positioned to supplement BI so ware and applicationswith strategic and management consulting services. Te biggest di erence rom the 2008evaluation comes in the orm o tighter integration with multiple IBM products, such as MetadataWorkbench, Business Viewpoint, DB2 Cubing Services, and Lotus. Additionally, IBM Cognos





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leads the market with metadata-generated BI applications (Adaptive Application Framework,or AAF), where all components o a complete BI solution (including reports) are automatically generated rom a single metadata set — making BI architecture, design, implementation, and

support much more agile. 8 And last, but not least, IBM Cognos now mounts a serious challenge toSAS and In ormation Builders with a main rame version o its BI applications.

IBM Cognos is by no means done with its port olio o BI tools. Tere’s still plenty to work on.Supplementing its in-memory M1 OLAP o ering with modeless exploration and analysissimilar to Qlik ech, IBCO Spot re, and Microso PowerPivot is a necessity, not a luxury,these days — it’s a gap that IBM still has to ll. And IBM Cognos still needs to catch up tosuperior sel -service BI SaaS o erings rom its main competitor, SAP BusinessObjects.

· SAP BusinessObjects believes in and delivers the “best BI tool or each job.” When you’relooking or the top report writer, look no urther than Crystal, which is probably OEMed andembedded into more applications than any other commercial BI tool. SAP BusinessObjectsExplorer is an innovative product combining the power o OLAP on the back end with thesimplicity o search-like UI and the exibility o aceted exploration and analysis (typically therealm o search, not BI tools).9 Xcelsius remains popular with many executives because they can take the sel -contained Flash les, which combine dashboard application and data, on theroad and use it on laptops in a disconnected mode — even without SAP so ware installed onthat machine. BEx is still the most widely used and popular query and analysis tool or SAP BWusers. And last but not least, Business Warehouse Accelerator appliance combines the exibility o columnar and inverted index databases with the speed o in-memory database to provide aunique and power ul DBMS optimized or BI. Additionally, SAP leads the large vendor pack in

sel -service BI SaaS o erings.10

Alas, all that power does not come without a price, and the price to be paid is product-to-product integration and object reuse. Some SAP BusinessObjects products still require separatedevelopment environments and have di erent user inter aces, and not all objects can be reused

rom product to product. While SAP will close that gap somewhat in the next release with amore common UI, a common prompting engine, and drill-through capabilities rom someproducts to others, ull and seamless integration is probably still at least a couple o majorreleases away.

· Oracle’s BI plat orm leap rogs some competitors in 11g release. Siebel and Hyperionacquisitions brought completely new and largely overlapping BI technology to Oracle. Not only did Oracle have to make strategic product choices between its own legacy BI and the newly acquired products, it also had to make tough strategy calls on which Hyperion and Siebelproducts would be ront and center o the new OBIEE (Oracle BI Enterprise Edition) Suite. Inseveral 10.x versions and especially in the latest 11g release, Oracle delivers on the directionit set or itsel back in 2007. As a result, OBIEE, mostly based on Siebel and Oracle legacy





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products (BI Server and Oracle Answers rom Siebel and BI Publisher rom Oracle) has takenshape as Oracle’s strategic BI plat orm, with Essbase as a MOLAP add-on that can serve as eithera source to OBIEE BI Server or an individual BI workspace on top o BI Server as a data source.

Oracle continues to di erentiate itsel rom the competition with hardware/so ware bundles(especially since the Sun acquisition), and with its OBIEE BI Server ROLAP engine, whichbrings multiple advantages over MOLAP. And in addition to closing some o the gaps it had in10.x versions such as lack o RIA unctionality, 11g release actually leap rogs the competitionwith Common Enterprise In ormation Model (CEIM) — including the ability to de ne actionsand execute processes right rom BI metadata across BI and ERP applications. 11

CEIM enables OBIEE 11g to plug right into any Oracle Fusion application metadata,eliminating the need, in some cases, to build costly data warehouses or data marts. But that’s aluxury that only Oracle Fusion ERP applications — and not any other vendor ERP applicationsusers — will enjoy. Yes, OBIEE can report and analyze data rom any source, it just won’t be asplug-and-play simple as with the Fusion Apps. And users o Hyperion BI reporting tools (otherthan Essbase) such as IR (Interactive Reporting), should watch out — these applications are nowin li etime support-only mode. While Oracle stays committed to this li etime support, Forresterexpects that all strategic and next-generation BI enhancements will mostly go to OBIEE.

· In ormation Builders o ers ull BI stack alternative to large sofware vendors. I or whateverreason you are not looking or a so ware stack lock-in rom a large vendor but still have largeenterprise BI requirements, In ormation Builders indeed o ers such a choice. Behind the sceneso WebFOCUS is In ormation Builder’s FOCUS product, which has more than 30 years o built-up expertise in large-scale — including main rame — data management architecture and data

processing. In ormation Builders also continues to lead the market with the richest set o dataand application adapters, which other BI vendors still OEM and rely on. Since our last ForresterWave review o the product in 2008, In ormation Builders has closed most o the gaps withnew unctionality such as data quality and integrated advanced analytics using open source “R”tools. And it continues to innovate with highly di erentiated reporting unctionality like ActiveReports, where all data is cached in the browser. Tis means that i the user pulls the networkcable out, she won’t even notice that she’s not online anymore. Even as mobile BI applicationson smartphones and PDAs become increasingly popular, they still remain in the realm o “niceto have,” while the seamless online/ofine unctionality o Active Reports has a highly practicalapplication or BI road warriors.

Te use o FOCUS technology as the base or WebFOCUS architecture is generally its strength— but it can also sometimes be a weakness. With every new release, In ormation Builders putsmore and more unctionality into the WebFOCUS point-and-click GUI, constantly reducing theneed to program in FOCUS language. But we hear that in some extreme cases where GUI justdoesn’t cut it, the user still has to roll up his sleeves and solve a problem with good old FOCUS4GL programming. And that may require resources with skills that not all enterprises are willingto invest in.





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· SAS continues to amaze the market with uninterrupted 32-year growth. Even though theintegration o IBM SPSS and open source R into third-party BI applications pose some newchallenges to SAS, it does remain a leader in integrated BI and advanced analytics. While SASis a $2.3 billion company, it grew mostly organically, with much ewer acquisitions than otherlarge so ware vendors. As a result, its BI products are more seamlessly integrated, and SAS canenjoy the reedom o almost ully concentrating on innovation rather than integration. SAS alsoleads the market in the area o embedded analytics, where advanced analytics are embeddedand executed right in DBMS engines, leveraging their processing power and scalability andeliminating the need to move data between analytical and relational data stores. 12 And SAScontinues to address the innate complexity o its power ul BASE SAS programming languagewith new products SAS Rapid Predictive Modeler (RPM). Rather than coding in BASE SAS,analysts can now use RPM to automatically step through a behind-the-scenes work ow o datapreparation, variable selection, and trans ormation; t a variety o algorithms; and per orm

model assessment based on best practices developed by SAS to create predictive models.

But there’s no time to rest or SAS either. It can do a better job on prepackaged ERP BI solutions— traditional strengths o its top large competitors IBM, Oracle, and SAP. And even thoughits JMP product provides in-memory advanced data visualization capabilities, SAS does needto o er a broader alternative to all o the latest in-memory analytics products. Even thoughForrester is still a big an o seamlessly integrated BI plat orms, perhaps SAS should considermore acquisitions to accelerate the pace o closing all o the current gaps in its BI port olio.

· Microsof BI gets a unique pervasive advantage rom SharePoint and O ce products. Even though IBM and Google continue to pose serious challenges, Microso does enjoy theadvantage o having the most ubiquitous portal and collaboration plat orm, SharePoint, andthe most pervasive o ce product, Microso O ce. And guess what? I you own SharePoint —which means that you also own SQL Server — and Microso O ce products already, like it ornot, you actually have all o the components o the Microso BI plat orm! It’s hard to beat that

value proposition pricewise. And while Microso may not have every single bell and whistle o a more expensive BI suite, it doesn’t need to, because the price/ eature equation de nitely worksin its avor. Tis may be especially attractive to rugal buyers who believe in the 80/20 rule.Forrester consistently hears rom our enterprise clients that very ew use the entire set, or 100%o the unctionality o their BI plat orm. For example, while prospective buyers can’t comparethe 10 or so data mining algorithms that come with Excel and SQL Server to the hundreds o

more advanced unctions that SAS and SPSS o er, Microso ’s ewer, less complex eatures canbe good enough, and they can be rolled out to and used by many more users.

Our pet peeve with Microso BI is that it can’t be run on a non-Microso plat orm. Yes, you canconnect, pull, and integrate data in SQL Server and SharePoint Servers rom databases and lesystems residing on any plat orm. But i you do all your development in Eclipse and Java, mostly have Unix/Linux avor servers and DBMS plat orms, and are committed to rolling out a portal





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and collaboration plat orm other than SharePoint, Microso BI may not be the best choiceor you. Microso BI also has signi cant gaps in its uni ed, common metadata model and inederated data access to heterogeneous sources — gaps we know Microso plans to close in the

near uture.

· MicroStrategy introduces signi cant multisourcing and in-memory ROLAP upgrades. MicroStrategy moves into the Leaders category with its “we only do BI and there ore we’rebest at it” attitude. While one can argue that getting all o the BI and in ormation managementcomponents rom a single provider has its advantages, there’s something to be said abouta vendor’s ability to concentrate all its e orts on nothing but pure-play BI. MicroStrategy continues to build on its traditional strength o a di erentiated ROLAP engine, which not only brings processing power and scalability but also a potentially lower long-term total cost o ownership due to the reduced number o total reports, data marts, and MOLAP cubes that needto be built and maintained. As many other BI vendors claim ederated and heterogeneous dataaccess capabilities, it’s typically done in separate EII products, which are not as “dimensionally aware” as MicroStrategy’s new multisourcing option. Even though MicroStrategy is a publiccompany, it runs more like a private business and shares a similar story with SAS andIn ormation Builders o ew acquisitions and seamlessly integrated plat orm. MicroStrategy alsohas an exclusive o ering: a completely ree version with unlimited use or up to two developersand 100 users.

But the “we only do BI” strategy does carry risks, as well (risks shared with other pure-play BI vendors like Actuate). Heavy reliance on in ormation management so ware partners can beperilous these days, since they are all slowly but surely disappearing under the umbrella o large

so ware stack vendors and becoming competitors. As a result, MicroStrategy is alling a bitbehind the market in such next-generation technologies such as integrating BI with processesand work ows and integrated metadata. And even though MicroStrategy o ers a ew ( ree o charge) industry data models, it cannot success ully compete with other BI vendors that o erprepackaged ERP BI solutions.

Strong Per ormers

· Acquisitions and integration with IBCO products edge Spot re closer to a ull BI stack. Whereas in 2008 IBCO Spot re competed in the market only based on its in-memory analytics unctionality, today it’s a completely di erent story. It closed many o the gaps it

had in ull-stack BI and in ormation management o ering by acquiring Insight ul — anadvanced analytics vendor — and striking an OEM deal with Composite So ware orederated, heterogeneous data access. Te resulting combination o integrated BI, process, rules,

work ows, event streams, and advanced analytics, building on IBCO’s traditional strengthsin application and data middleware, is hard to beat. IBCO Spot re continues to lead andshare the increasingly important in-memory analytics market with Qlik ech and Microso





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PowerPivot. But whereas Qlik ech and Microso in-memory models are limited to what can tinto memory at one time, IBCO Spot re o ers a unique memory-swapping or paging eature,which lets it analyze models that are larger than a single available memory space (although

paging can sometimes signi cantly slow down the analysis).

Even with all o its traditional strengths, acquisitions, and its newly integrated plat orm, IBCOSpot re is still not a BI panacea. For example, it can hardly compete — and actually does not —with report writers like Actuate and SAP BusinessObjects Crystal or producing pixel-per ectproduction reports or mass distribution (printing bills or customer statements, or example).As a result, Forrester hardly ever recommends in-memory analytics products as a replacement,but rather as complementary technology or broader BI suites. But with the expanding breadtho the IBCO Spot re o ering, enterprises may be increasingly challenged to draw a linebetween a replacement and an add-on strategy.

· Actuate muscles into OSS BI, leveraging its large-scale BI application development strengths. Just like with MicroStrategy, i what you’re looking or is a pure-play BI plat orm, Actuate BIRis one o the right options. Actuate leveraged technology and experience rom its commercialsource products such as e.Reports and iServer into its latest BIR -based product line. As a result,Actuate BIR can be used or mass (millions) end user BI applications and or highly complex,multisource (with scalability and load balancing challenges) BI applications like interactive onlinecustomer statements. In the most recent edition, Actuate also added BIR Data Objects, whichcan be used or disk- or memory-based OLAP-style analysis and end-user-built dashboards.Actuate is investing heavily in mobile BI with native BIR iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android( uture plans) applications. Actuate is also expanding its o ering into printstream and end-to-end

document management capabilities (or ILM — in ormation li e-cycle management). Producingreporting applications o en starts a li e cycle, where in ormation needs to be distributed, stored,secured, and archived. With that approach in mind, Actuate acquired Xenos and is currently integrating Actuate’s and Xenos’ document management capabilities.

But Actuate also con ronts the same risks as MicroStrategy with a heavy reliance on in ormationmanagement so ware partners (such as data integration, data quality, data warehousing), and

alling behind the market in such next-generation technologies as integrating BI with processesand work ows and integrated metadata. And even though BIR users can enjoy multipleindustry data models and applications provided on the BIR Exchange Marketplace, Actuatecannot success ully compete with other BI vendors that o er prepackaged ERP BI solutions.

· Qlik ech takes its right ul place among larger BI vendors with a success ul IPO. Qlik ech hasthe honor o being the only success ul BI vendor IPO in recent years — in act, it was the only one. Tis is especially remarkable, since in a current tough economic climate it is extremely toughto convince any nancier to make any new technology investments. Qlik ech, however, was ableto convince the investors — and Forrester ully agrees with the supporting arguments — that the





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BI market is still very thinly penetrated and has a strong potential to grow; in the long term, itmay even surpass the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and transactional applications markets.Tere have been two very signi cant updates in Qlik ech unctionality since the 2008 review.

First, unlike some o its direct competitors, Qlik ech can now update its memory model row by row, instead o requiring the entire model to be reloaded into memory. Tis is especially use ul

or use cases with near-real-time, or low latency, reporting requirements. which are traditionally a weakness in other in-memory technologies. And Qlik ech also capitalizes on a eature that’straditionally reserved by search vendors like Endeca or Attivo. It can now supplement traditionalOLAP operations with aceted navigation, which can be especially use ul or data sets withunbalanced and sparse hierarchies.

By concentrating solely on in-memory analytics, Qlik ech should not be considered as areplacement option but rather just as an add-on to broad BI suites. Even though it has been inthe in-memory analytics business longer than most o its competitors and so can claim the bestmemory optimization and compression, it still lacks the capability to load and analyze modelsthat are larger than one single memory space.

· Panorama Sofware gets a Strong Per ormer upgrade based on a broader data accessplat orm. Panorama still wants to be your primary BI provider i all you do is OLAP. WhilePanorama NovaView does not provide its own OLAP engine, it does shine with a top-gradeOLAP GUI. So i an enterprise has multiple OLAP servers — such as Microso AnalysisServices and PowerPivot, Oracle Essbase, SAP BW, and OSS Mondrian — and you want to usea single OLAP GUI or a common user experience and simpler training, rollout, and changemanagement e orts, NovaView may just be the right option. Panorama’s main gap in the past

was that it could only access and analyze data rom OLAP and not rom relational sources. Teevaluated version now solves the problem — any relational data can be accessed and analyzed,albeit still by creating an intermediate OLAP structure. We also especially liked a couple o the unique eatures o NovaView: 1) tight integration with Microso Outlook and O ceCommunicator and 2) an ability to display two values in a single cell, split diagonally (great oranalyzing related numbers like budget or orecast versus actuals). Panorama also continues tolead the market with the only OLAP option available or Google applications in its PanoramaPivot ables or Google Spreadsheet product.

Just like any other “analytics only” product, NovaView is not a replacement but rather an add-onto other BI plat orms. Tere’s also the question o long-term viability o the OLAP market, as itis rapidly being supplemented — and at some point, possibly replaced — with more power ulOLAP-like technologies such as in-memory analytics. When, not i , that happens, Panoramawill have to reinvent itsel by taking advantage o new in-memory and SaaS technologies.





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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Online Resource

Te online version o Figure 5 is an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailedproduct evaluations and customizable rankings.

Data Sources Used In This Forrester wave

Forrester used a combination o three data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses o eachsolution:

· Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluationcriteria. Once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls wherenecessary to gather details o vendor quali cations.

· Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations o their respective product’sunctionality. We used ndings rom these product demos to validate details o each vendor’s

product capabilities.

· Customer re erence surveys. o validate product and vendor quali cations, Forrester alsogathered data through a survey o 10 o each vendor’s current customers.

The Forrester wave Methodology

We conduct primary research to develop a list o vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluatedin this market. From that initial pool o vendors, we then narrow our nal list. We choose these

vendors based on: 1) product t; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have limited customer re erences and products that don’t t the scope o our evaluation.

A er examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we developthe initial evaluation criteria. o evaluate the vendors and their products against our set o criteria,we gather details o product quali cations through a combination o lab evaluations, questionnaires,demos, and/or discussions with client re erences. We send evaluations to the vendors or theirreview, and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view o vendor o erings andstrategies.

We set de ault weightings to re ect our analysis o the needs o large user companies — and/orother scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document — and then score the vendors basedon a clearly de ned scale. Tese de ault weightings are intended only as a starting point, and weencourage readers to adapt the weightings to t their individual needs through the Excel-basedtool. Te nal scores generate the graphical depiction o the market based on current o ering,strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as productcapabilities and vendor strategies evolve.





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ENDNOTES1 While the whole I market is acing challenging economic times, the global so ware market declined

by 8% in 2009 compared with the previous year. Business intelligence (BI) so ware, which can providetransparency and decision support to improve business per ormance and help companies through di culttimes, did not share the same ate and actually showed solid double-digit growth, even in 2009. See the May 10, 2010, “Te State O Business Intelligence So ware And Emerging rends: 2010 ” report.

2 I in ormation managers do not have a current strategy to coordinate in ormation management (IM)initiatives, they must cope with application and in ormation silos that are mired in the past, in exible tomaintain, costly to operate, noncompliant, and di cult to integrate. See the August 11, 2009, “ Re resh YourIn ormation Management Strategy o Deliver Business Results ” report.

3 When you analyze whether your BI vendor can support end user sel -service, consider the list o “sel -service” options and related BI tool requirements in Boris Evelson’s blog post. Source: Boris Evelson, “Not

all BI sel service capabilities are created equal,”Boris Evelson’s Blog For Business Process Pro essionals,April 26, 2010 (http://blogs. orrester.com/boris_evelson/10-04-26-not_all_bi_sel _service_capabilities_are_created_equal). Also, it’s all about “prediscovery” vs. “post-discovery” o data. Source: Boris Evelson,

“In ormation Post-Discovery - Latest BI rend,” Boris Evelson’s Blog For Business Process Pro essionals, May 16, 2009 (http://blogs. orrester.com/boris_evelson/09-05-16-in ormation_post_discovery_latest_bi_trend).

4 Forrester’s long list o BI stack components includes: advanced analytics, analytical per ormancemanagement, scorecards, BI-speci c DBMS, BI workspace, dashboards, geospatial analytics, low-latency BI,metadata-generated BI apps, non-modeled exploration and in-memory analytics, OLAP, packaged BI apps,process/content analytics, production reports and ad hoc query builders, search UI or BI, social network/media analytics, text analytics, and Web analytics.

5 Large BI vendors are pulling together deeper advanced analytics strategies — a trend strongly con rmed by IBM’s recently announced plan to acquire SPSS. Forrester believes this strategic trend will continue and willbene t business process and application (BP&A) and in ormation and knowledge management (I&KM)pro essionals seeking to build integrated traditional and advanced (predictive) BI applications. See theAugust 18, 2009, “Business Intelligence (BI) Polishes Its Crystal Ball” report.

6 I you’re looking or a traditional, pure-play BI application (that mostly relies on other vendors or dataintegration) and highly scalable and unction-rich reporting unctionality, Actuate BIR is the right option.See the August 10, 2010, “Te Forrester Wave™: Open Source Business Intelligence (BI), Q3 2010 ” report.

7 In-memory analytics are all abuzz or multiple reasons. Speed o querying, reporting, and analysis is just one. Flexibility, agility, and rapid prototyping are others. While there are many more reasons, not allin-memory approaches are created equal. For a deeper look at ve options buyers have today, see BorisEvelson’s blog. Source: Boris Evelson, “I orget: what’s in-memory?”Boris Evelson’s Blog For Business ProcessPro essionals, March 31, 2010 (http://blogs. orrester.com/boris_evelson/10-03-31-i_ orget_whats_in_memory).

8 Agile BI is rst and oremost a di erent approach to designing and building BI applications. Te purposeo Agile BI is to: 1) get the development done aster, and 2) react more quickly to changing businessrequirements. See the April 22, 2010, “Agile BI Out O Te Box ” report.

















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9 Faceted search takes a ree text query and returns a rich search results page with multiple ways to display and interact with the results like “re nement tools.” Re nement options (such as date, price, or location)are extracted rom the content during the content processing step or are based on explicit metadata

stored separately in a taxonomy. See the March 18, 2010, “ Q&A: Search Fundamentals For In ormation &Knowledge Management Pros ” report.

10 In January 2010, SAP BusinessObjects plans to strengthen its BI SaaS port olio with the next generation o SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand, which will expand the capabilities o the crystalreports.com and SAPBusinessObjects BI OnDemand products to o er a uller sel -service SaaS solution targeted mostly at thecasual BI user. See the January 26, 2010, “BI In Te Cloud? Yes, And On Te Ground, oo ” report.

11 Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a core component o a complex business intelligence architecturalstack. Even as vendors begin to explore alternative technologies or “slicing” and “dicing” large datasets, OLAP engines, servers, and models still play a key role in most BI solutions or small, midsize, andespecially large enterprises. See the January 12, 2009, “Latest BI Adoption rends In Enterprises: BrightFuture, But O o A Slow Start ” report.

12 Predictive analytics can play a pivotal role in the planning and day-to-day operations o your business. Itcan help you ocus strategy and continually tweak plans based on actual per ormance and likely uturescenarios. For more in ormation on predictive analytics and the vendor landscape, see the February 4, 2010,

“Te Forrester Wave™: Predictive Analytics And Data Mining Solutions, Q1 2010 ” report.















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