BI Partnership Ecosystem - "Gone With The Wind"

I have long resisted and will continue to resist for the foreseeable future any notions that the business intelligence market is commoditizing. A single simple look at the BI maturity in enterprises and next gen BI technologies is a simple proof that we are far, very far, from any kinds of commoditization.

Consolidation is quite a different story. Last week's SAP acquisition of Sybase and my roaming the exhibitor/partner floor at SAPPHIRE in Orlando are two more proofs. On a huge SAPPHIRE exhibition floor I could count software partners by the number of the fingers on my hands. Why? Because everyone who matters has been acquired by a competitor!

Most of the exhibitors were management consultancies, systems integrators and other SAP implementation partners. Hence, a lesson to independent BI vendors: offer your own full BI stack or position yourself for an acquisition. No other long-term options in my mind.

But as always, I welcome all and any comments and opposing views.

Boris also blogs at http://blogs.forrester.com/boris_evelson/.