BI Industry Analysis

September 27, 2012

Revenge of the Nerds

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal, “Revenge of the Nerds, the Sequel: Silicon Valley Wallflowers Now Hot”, notes that business-tech start-ups were emerging from obscurity and […]
June 12, 2012

BI M&A Continues with a Twist: QlikTech Acquires Expressor

QlikTech (QLIK), a leading independent business intelligence (BI) vendor, announced today it has acquired expressor software. QlikTech, with over $300 million in sales, was recently listed […]
September 30, 2009

Enterprise Software: Who Should Buy Whom?

In our post Enterprise Software: Is there any one left to buy? we listed the best candidates to be acquired within the lucrative Business Intelligence (BI) […]
September 24, 2009

Enterprise Software: Is there any one left to buy?

The high tech Titans – IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), SAP (SAP) and EMC (EMC) – have been buying software firms at an […]
September 18, 2009

Database Wars: Fighting Yesterday’s Battle?

A recent flurry of news articles in the database industry has reinforced my perceptions that the software titans have lost touch with current market needs.  The PR […]
July 29, 2009

Enterprise Software: The Next Acquisition Wave

The high tech titans – IBM (IBM), HP (HPQ), Oracle, Microsoft (MSFT), SAP (SAP) and EMC (EMC) – and their  smaller software brethren have been nibbling […]
February 26, 2009

IT Budget Forecast Lowered but…

Yesterday IDC lowered its forecast (IDC Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending Growth of 0.5% in 2009) for IT spending from its November estimates based on the “continued […]
February 24, 2009

BI/DW Index: Hardware tarnishes the index

Software companies, as represented by the iShares S&P North American Technology-Software Index Fund, continue to outperform the overall market indices (see table.) Although these companies and […]
February 3, 2009

Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing Emerging Trends (but not breakouts): 9 for ’09

Just like Goldilocks and the Three Bears we are looking at what is too hot, too cold and just right. So far we have discussed our […]
December 30, 2008

Business Intelligence (BI) Industry Jargon

When teaching people about business intelligence (BI), data integration and data warehousing, after introductions and reviewing the syllabus or agenda, I present my jargon and acronym […]
November 5, 2008

Sun – Too Cool for School…or Business

What happens when a high tech company loses its way to achieving long-term growth and profitability? It slowly fades away. Sometimes it is because a company […]
September 26, 2008

Oracle Navigating Turbulent Waters?

   Oracle (ORCL) is often the bellwether for the software industry so it is important to keep tabs on how well it is performing and what its business […]
September 17, 2008

Introducing the Business Intelligence (BI) & Data Warehousing (DW) Index

The intent of this blog is to discuss industry trends in business intelligence (BI), data warehousing (DW), data integration and performance management. The economy and the […]
September 5, 2008

On-Demand Index – Online & Up-to-date

The On-Demand Index (ODI) is now available online and up-to-date (with a potential delay of 20 minutes for stock quotes.) I am using Google Docs and […]
June 30, 2008

On-Demand (or SaaS) Index: Fundamentals Matter

The On-Demand Index (ODI) is down 18.55% YTD. This compares to YTD performance:  iShares S&P GSTI Software Index Fund (IGV)  -7.69%, Dow -14.46%, Nasdaq Composite -12.69% […]
May 23, 2008

ODI Stocks: It’s a Stock Pickers’ Market

On Monday May 19, 2008 the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a section titled ”Finding the Way in Rough Seas”. Two of the three top stock […]
March 31, 2008

Oracle is dragging down other canaries

Oracle (ORCL ) released its fiscal third-quarter results last Wednesday matching analyst overall expectations but spooking people with lighter than expected new application software licenses. The […]
March 28, 2008

Failing to meet expectations

  When teaching about data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) fundamentals to IT groups, business people or students at a university I always mention the […]
March 27, 2008

Oracle’s “Miss”: The Canary in the Coal Mine

Oracle (ORCL ) released its fiscal third-quarter results last night. Net income was $1.3 billion or 26 cents a share with revenue of $5.3 billion or […]
March 18, 2008

On-Demand (or SaaS) Index: The Bottom or More Pain

Momentum is fun on the rise but not so much fun on the decline. The clichés like “this time it is different” used to justify investing […]
March 4, 2008

Suites (BI, data integration or data modeling): Boom or Bust?

Microsoft (MSFT) vaulted into dominating PC applications when it developed its Office Suite concept a long time ago. Before this suite people bought best-of-breed applications for […]
February 18, 2008

On-Demand (or SaaS) Index: R&B impacting momentum

The R&B (Recession and Bear market) words are continuing to impact many of stocks on the On-Demand Index. The On-Demand Index is down 21.22%YTD and the […]
February 7, 2008

BI & DW Hype: 8 for ’08 The death of the independent software firm

(This post is a continuation of a series on  BI & DW Hyped trends). The death of the independent software firm is greatly exaggerated. MicroStrategy (MSTR), […]
January 30, 2008

On-Demand (SaaS) Index: Still Underwater

It continues to be a challenging investment environment for tech stocks and our On-Demand (or SaaS) index confirms that environment. The On-Demand Index is down 16.80% […]
January 22, 2008

On-Demand (or SaaS) Index: Still skidding but look who is gaining

It continues to be a tough year for financial, tech and SaaS stocks. Our On-Demand Index is down 16.74% YTD. In comparison the Nasdaq Composite index […]
January 18, 2008

Why did Sun buy MySQL?

“Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, an open source icon and developer of one […]
January 16, 2008

On-Demand (or SaaS) Index: Hype & Business Models

It has been a tough beginning of the year for SaaS stocks and tech stocks in general. Our On-Demand Index is down 14.48% YTD. In comparison, […]
January 7, 2008

Introducing the On-Demand (or SaaS) Index

Nicholas Carr discusses the upcoming year for SaaS (software as a service) or On-Demand software in 2008: SaaS’s breakout year? posted in his in his “Rough […]
January 2, 2008

On-Demand ready for a fall?

I am an avid reader of Barron’s “Plugged In” column written by Mark Veverka. In this week’s column “Will New Year Ring in Woes?” Mark solicits […]
November 18, 2007

BI Market: “The Song Remains the Same”

Now that Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), and IBM have collectively spent $15B to buy Hyperion Solutions, Business Objects and Cognos there are a lot of industry […]
November 14, 2007

IBM acquires Cognos: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It …”

In a much anticipated move, IBM announced that it is acquiring Cognos (COGN) for $5 billion or approximately $58/share. IBM has been aggressively expanding its software […]
November 13, 2007

Yes, Cognos Was Next

Now we know the answer to my October 11 post Is Cognos Next? I’ll write more on this soon.
October 31, 2007

BI independents get no respect

After SAP announced it was acquiring Business Objects the speculation immediately started about when and who would buy Cognos (COGN). Although Cognos might very well be […]
October 11, 2007

Is Cognos Next?

Speculation surrounding Business Objects ended when SAP announced that its plans to acquire it for $6.8 billion. Who’s next? It appears investors have voted by raising […]
October 8, 2007

Business Objects Acquired by SAP: No Surprise!

The French newspaper Le Figaro’s report on September 15th that Business Objects SA had retained Goldman Sachs to find a buyer with SAP the leading candidate […]