Mark Smith of Ventana Research didn't mince words over HP's announcement it will shut down its business intelligence product Neoview, obviously bowing out of the BI software market.
Despite the hot market, growing demand for software and services, and competitors like IBM, Oracle, and SAP aggressively pursuing BI, it appears that HP is a drop-out.
Or are they? While Mark seems to think HP management is rather clueless about the BI software industry, he also suggests that they might actually stay in the game by acquiring one of the remaining smaller BI vendors--MicroStrategy, Actuate, Information Builders, or QlikTech.
Could it be that HP is tossing out one BI product but intends to buy another?
QlikTech's QlikView is a hot up-and-coming BI product that HP might be able to acquire at a reasonable price (unless they wait too long). Actuate is a Java-based reporting tool that is probably a better fit for another vendor, such as Oracle.
MicroStrategy and Information Builders have similar server-based web BI architectures and either could be right for HP. But MicroStrategy is publicly traded while Information Builders is privately held by the same founding owners from the 1970s. HP and IBI could pair up nicely.
Mark offers his best wishes to HP and told them to call if they have any questions about BI. See the whole story on the Information Management website.
Showing posts with label BI Market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BI Market. Show all posts
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Eponymous Pickle Blog
Here it is the middle of November and Franz Dill has blogged over 1220 times this year -- that is about five times every workday. And Franz is not like Guy Kawasaki with automated tools to generate random posts (sorry, Guy).
Franz manually writes each day on his Eponymous Pickle blog, providing readers with high quality content related to emerging technologies.
I was lucky enough to have lunch with Franz this week and learn more about his work.
At the beginning of 2005, Franz started his personal blog, but was already a professional blogger for the Procter & Gamble Company where he was a chief scientist and an emergent technologist. Franz wrote content for P&G's innovation centers, which specialize in consumer product research and development.
Franz often writes articles of interest to individuals interested in Business Intelligence software. For example, please see the following:
Data Mining for Education
SpotFire on the Apple iPad
New Data Visualization Tool
Cindi Howson on Cool BI
Franz manually writes each day on his Eponymous Pickle blog, providing readers with high quality content related to emerging technologies.
I was lucky enough to have lunch with Franz this week and learn more about his work.
At the beginning of 2005, Franz started his personal blog, but was already a professional blogger for the Procter & Gamble Company where he was a chief scientist and an emergent technologist. Franz wrote content for P&G's innovation centers, which specialize in consumer product research and development.
Franz often writes articles of interest to individuals interested in Business Intelligence software. For example, please see the following:
Data Mining for Education
SpotFire on the Apple iPad
New Data Visualization Tool
Cindi Howson on Cool BI
Monday, November 1, 2010
Where are the BI Jobs?
Every so often, I skim through the Business Intelligence software jobs posted in Monster and file away some numbers in a spreadsheet.
Do you know where 80% of the BI jobs are?
It's probably obvious, but these openings are consolidated into some mega-vendors--SAS, SAP, IBM, and Microsoft. Here are my unofficial, unscientific counts:
SAP BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports
Okay, here's the problem. I may be counting SAP BusinessObjects Crystal Reports jobs in two different categories. If the jobs for BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports were mutually exclusive, then SAP would be the clear winner with over 30% of the BI jobs. But I suspect that many Crystal Reports job postings have BO.
Personally, I'm shocked that Crystal Reports demand is so high. It's slightly down from when I started tracking it in January 2009, but showing a nice increase from January 2010. Hmm, here is a legacy Windows-based desktop reporting tool that is generating job growth. This comes at a time when some companies tell me they are getting rid of Crystal Reports.
But one of my healthcare clients clued me in on something else happening. He is hiring three Crystal Reports developers despite owning a web-based enterprise BI product. Why? Because his organization is implementing a new EPIC healthcare system that comes with...drum-roll...Crystal Reports.
Getting your software product embedded inside other vendors' packaged applications is a winning business approach. Just ask Oracle. But wait, where is mega-vendor Oracle on the BI job list?
Oracle
Perhaps I'm not fair to Oracle in how I search for BI jobs. I want to filter out the gazillion Oracle database and application jobs out there and only count the business intelligence ones. To do that, I just look for "OBIEE." Right or wrong, those only add up to about 2% of the total BI jobs, but the figure has doubled since I started watching.
MicroStrategy
I should also mention that demand for MicroStrategy skills is right there above Oracle OBIEE.
IBM Cognos
IBM wants to be your one-stop business shop for all things computer related. Before IBM acquired the company, Cognos had already transitioned into a billion dollar BI success. It is no wonder that job demand is high for IBM Cognos products.
SAS
Should we be awed by the tremendous demand for SAS BI professionals? There are almost 1800 postings in Monster for SAS jobs, accounting for a quarter of all the BI jobs for all the vendor products. Parents, send your kid to a statistics course!
Other BI Vendors
I don't want to embarrass the BI vendors at the bottom of the list. But why is that -- how can a leading BI vendor have such little demand for its product in the job market? I imagine they would tell me that their product is so easy to use that companies can use existing employees (LOL).
Legacy Reporting Tools and Open Source
Surprisingly, some old legacy reporting tools are still out there in slight demand but obviously declining--Brio and SQR are examples. For the open-source technologies (for example, BIRT and Pentaho), those just don't seem to be going anywhere quickly.
Emerging: QlikTech's QlikView
One BI product toward the bottom of the job list deserves attention. Watch out for QlikTech's QlikView. Demand for that at the beginning of 2010 was pretty much non-existent (but in January 2009 I might have looked only for company and not product name), but not so today. Companies are buying it and QlikTech is moving into the hot mobile BI tablet marketspace with an Apple iPad application.
Mobile BI
Speaking of which, at the beginning of 2010 I also started tracking job postings for iPhone. The number of openings has since then almost doubled. The same thing has happened with iPad jobs (and I didn't look until mid-2010). If you are looking for a fun job in a hot software arena, consider the mobile space.
I will keep an eye on Monster for BI jobs for you. I am interested in your thoughts so please post comments.
Do you know where 80% of the BI jobs are?
It's probably obvious, but these openings are consolidated into some mega-vendors--SAS, SAP, IBM, and Microsoft. Here are my unofficial, unscientific counts:
- SAS -- 25.7% of the BI jobs that I tracked for major vendors (non-open source)
- SAP BusinessObjects -- 17.38% (does not include Crystal Reports)
- IBM Cognos -- 15.67%
- Crystal Reports -- 12.86%
- Microsoft Reporting Services -- 9.79%
SAP BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports
Okay, here's the problem. I may be counting SAP BusinessObjects Crystal Reports jobs in two different categories. If the jobs for BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports were mutually exclusive, then SAP would be the clear winner with over 30% of the BI jobs. But I suspect that many Crystal Reports job postings have BO.
Personally, I'm shocked that Crystal Reports demand is so high. It's slightly down from when I started tracking it in January 2009, but showing a nice increase from January 2010. Hmm, here is a legacy Windows-based desktop reporting tool that is generating job growth. This comes at a time when some companies tell me they are getting rid of Crystal Reports.
But one of my healthcare clients clued me in on something else happening. He is hiring three Crystal Reports developers despite owning a web-based enterprise BI product. Why? Because his organization is implementing a new EPIC healthcare system that comes with...drum-roll...Crystal Reports.
Getting your software product embedded inside other vendors' packaged applications is a winning business approach. Just ask Oracle. But wait, where is mega-vendor Oracle on the BI job list?
Oracle
Perhaps I'm not fair to Oracle in how I search for BI jobs. I want to filter out the gazillion Oracle database and application jobs out there and only count the business intelligence ones. To do that, I just look for "OBIEE." Right or wrong, those only add up to about 2% of the total BI jobs, but the figure has doubled since I started watching.
MicroStrategy
I should also mention that demand for MicroStrategy skills is right there above Oracle OBIEE.
IBM Cognos
IBM wants to be your one-stop business shop for all things computer related. Before IBM acquired the company, Cognos had already transitioned into a billion dollar BI success. It is no wonder that job demand is high for IBM Cognos products.
SAS
Should we be awed by the tremendous demand for SAS BI professionals? There are almost 1800 postings in Monster for SAS jobs, accounting for a quarter of all the BI jobs for all the vendor products. Parents, send your kid to a statistics course!
Other BI Vendors
I don't want to embarrass the BI vendors at the bottom of the list. But why is that -- how can a leading BI vendor have such little demand for its product in the job market? I imagine they would tell me that their product is so easy to use that companies can use existing employees (LOL).
Legacy Reporting Tools and Open Source
Surprisingly, some old legacy reporting tools are still out there in slight demand but obviously declining--Brio and SQR are examples. For the open-source technologies (for example, BIRT and Pentaho), those just don't seem to be going anywhere quickly.
Emerging: QlikTech's QlikView
One BI product toward the bottom of the job list deserves attention. Watch out for QlikTech's QlikView. Demand for that at the beginning of 2010 was pretty much non-existent (but in January 2009 I might have looked only for company and not product name), but not so today. Companies are buying it and QlikTech is moving into the hot mobile BI tablet marketspace with an Apple iPad application.
Mobile BI
Speaking of which, at the beginning of 2010 I also started tracking job postings for iPhone. The number of openings has since then almost doubled. The same thing has happened with iPad jobs (and I didn't look until mid-2010). If you are looking for a fun job in a hot software arena, consider the mobile space.
I will keep an eye on Monster for BI jobs for you. I am interested in your thoughts so please post comments.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Disappearing Business Intelligence Products
A recent conversation with a Business Intelligence software vendor did not go well for me. I told them that I knew of close to a dozen local companies who had either already eliminated their BI product or were planning to do so. I saw it as a disturbing trend and asked how I could help.
They did not deny the facts. Instead, they took my comment as a personal attack and never want to talk to me again.
I truly feel sorry for sales people working for BI software vendors. It is a tough job even for the market leaders, much less the underdogs. Sales people must often sell brand new innovations that nobody else has yet bought, recent technology that may or may not yet have any referenceable accounts, or legacy products that other companies are getting rid of.
By the nature of their jobs, software sales people are forced to ignore reality. Their sole responsibility is to sell their company's product A, B, or C. Just figure out how to make people buy it. If they can't, they are put on the infamous "performance improvement plan" (which is BI vendorspeak for "You have three months to find another job").
Software sales reps have to pretend that their product is the right one for the prospect and keep pushing the decision maker for a purchase. That is a tough job and I sympathize with what they go through.
My personal problem is that sales people who have to ignore facts hate people like me who point out the facts.
Which reminds me of a funny story. Presenting at a seminar, a vendor rep claimed, "After implementing our software, company ABC saw a 300% decrease in project costs!" A hand immediately went up in the crowd. "I'm sorry, but if you eliminate all costs that is a 100% savings. How is it possible to reduce costs by 300%?" The perturbed sales rep countered with, "I'll send you a white paper."
Facts get in the way of a good sales pitch.
Sales people do not want to discuss problems customers are having with their software. They do not want to know about bugs in their products.
But that's not completely true. More correctly, sales people do not want their prospects and customers to hear any negatives. If I have the audacity to point out troubling facts to the BI vendor, they are worried I will pass that along to the market in general.
Sales reps should remember Sun-Tzu's famous saying, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." I have never heard anybody recommend "Take a hike, jerk" as a life mantra.
The BI software market is consolidating. The mega-vendors (IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle) purchased the pure BI vendors that will survive into the future. SAS leads the statistical BI market as a pure BI vendor, but the other BI firms face tough times.
In general, companies are replacing their existing BI products with those from the mega-vendor list. Legacy reporting tools are being eliminated and replaced with modern technologies. If a vendor's BI product did not make the jump to the web, it is probably dead.
If that BI tool is not prepared to move onto mobile tablet computing, it might also be headed for the scrap heap. Howard Dresner points out a predictive fact in a recent study on mobile BI. A third of the people he surveyed said they would move to new technology that supported mobile BI.
Don't you just hate facts?
They did not deny the facts. Instead, they took my comment as a personal attack and never want to talk to me again.
I truly feel sorry for sales people working for BI software vendors. It is a tough job even for the market leaders, much less the underdogs. Sales people must often sell brand new innovations that nobody else has yet bought, recent technology that may or may not yet have any referenceable accounts, or legacy products that other companies are getting rid of.
By the nature of their jobs, software sales people are forced to ignore reality. Their sole responsibility is to sell their company's product A, B, or C. Just figure out how to make people buy it. If they can't, they are put on the infamous "performance improvement plan" (which is BI vendorspeak for "You have three months to find another job").
Software sales reps have to pretend that their product is the right one for the prospect and keep pushing the decision maker for a purchase. That is a tough job and I sympathize with what they go through.
My personal problem is that sales people who have to ignore facts hate people like me who point out the facts.
Which reminds me of a funny story. Presenting at a seminar, a vendor rep claimed, "After implementing our software, company ABC saw a 300% decrease in project costs!" A hand immediately went up in the crowd. "I'm sorry, but if you eliminate all costs that is a 100% savings. How is it possible to reduce costs by 300%?" The perturbed sales rep countered with, "I'll send you a white paper."
Facts get in the way of a good sales pitch.
Sales people do not want to discuss problems customers are having with their software. They do not want to know about bugs in their products.
But that's not completely true. More correctly, sales people do not want their prospects and customers to hear any negatives. If I have the audacity to point out troubling facts to the BI vendor, they are worried I will pass that along to the market in general.
Sales reps should remember Sun-Tzu's famous saying, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." I have never heard anybody recommend "Take a hike, jerk" as a life mantra.
The BI software market is consolidating. The mega-vendors (IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle) purchased the pure BI vendors that will survive into the future. SAS leads the statistical BI market as a pure BI vendor, but the other BI firms face tough times.
In general, companies are replacing their existing BI products with those from the mega-vendor list. Legacy reporting tools are being eliminated and replaced with modern technologies. If a vendor's BI product did not make the jump to the web, it is probably dead.
If that BI tool is not prepared to move onto mobile tablet computing, it might also be headed for the scrap heap. Howard Dresner points out a predictive fact in a recent study on mobile BI. A third of the people he surveyed said they would move to new technology that supported mobile BI.
Don't you just hate facts?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Forrester Wave Q4 2010 for Enterprise BI Platforms
Looking at my blog statistics, I see people searching the web for a list of hot BI companies and products. Many want a comparison of the different technologies available so that they can make a better purchasing decision.
One of the best ways to understand the BI software market is to pay for some research from the industry analysts, such as Gartner, Forrester Research, and Yankee Group. Their reports may cost you from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
If you can't afford the details, you can often find high-level summaries that give away the highlights for free.
For example, Boris Evelson at Forrester Group recently released his latest research on Enterprise BI Platforms. You can find out more about the Q4 2010 Forrester Wave on Boris' Information Management blog.
As expected, Boris points out that the mega-vendors continue to be the clear Business Intelligence leaders. However, it is not just about their software products; they are able to provide customers with "overall information management functionality."
While that might be a safe enterprise decision, Boris recommends considering privately-held Information Builders as a serious alternative to the very large vendors. IBI has its own integrated stack of BI products:
Keep an eye on QlikTech which has been a darling in Europe and is starting to be hot here in the United States. Boris acknowledges QlikTech as a real BI vendor following its successful IPO.
Be sure to see Boris' complete research, including the detail 147 evaluation criteria and vendor specifics.
One of the best ways to understand the BI software market is to pay for some research from the industry analysts, such as Gartner, Forrester Research, and Yankee Group. Their reports may cost you from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
If you can't afford the details, you can often find high-level summaries that give away the highlights for free.
For example, Boris Evelson at Forrester Group recently released his latest research on Enterprise BI Platforms. You can find out more about the Q4 2010 Forrester Wave on Boris' Information Management blog.
As expected, Boris points out that the mega-vendors continue to be the clear Business Intelligence leaders. However, it is not just about their software products; they are able to provide customers with "overall information management functionality."
- IBM Cognos
- SAP BusinessObjects
- Oracle
- SAS
In this release, Boris has upgraded some other familiar vendor names into the Leaders category:
- Information Builders
- Microsoft
- MicroStrategy
Outside of these premier Leaders, Boris has categories for a runner-up "Strong Performer" and a lurking bunch of "Contenders." Already in the Strong Performer group were:
- TIBCO Spotfire
- Actuate
Boris moved two BI players out of their Contender role and into the Strong Performer group:
- QlikTech
- Panarama Software
The mega-vendors clearly provide an entire "stack of technologies" that includes hardware, software, and complementary products and services. They want you to buy everything from them as the sole preferred vendor.
While that might be a safe enterprise decision, Boris recommends considering privately-held Information Builders as a serious alternative to the very large vendors. IBI has its own integrated stack of BI products:
- Universal Metadata and Data Access Layer
- WebFOCUS Reporting Server for web-based on-demand access
- User interfaces for the entire enterprise of varying needs
- WebFOCUS Distribution Server/ReportCaster for automated information delivery
- iWay Software ETL for batch data movements
- iWay Software Service Manager for real-time data movements
- Database update capabilities
- Custom database
- Broad support for multiple platforms, databases, and web technologies
Boris also points out that SAS "continues to amaze the market with uninterrupted 32-year growth." It is truly awe-inspiring that Jim Goodnight took a college project for analyzing agriculture and turned it into a multi-billion dollar product. SAS is truly the stuff software legends are made of.
Keep an eye on QlikTech which has been a darling in Europe and is starting to be hot here in the United States. Boris acknowledges QlikTech as a real BI vendor following its successful IPO.
Be sure to see Boris' complete research, including the detail 147 evaluation criteria and vendor specifics.
