Snapshot: BI Revenues Up 22 Percent Last Year

Worldwide business intelligence platform, analytic applications and performance management software revenue reached $8.8 billion in 2008, a 21.7 percent increase from 2007 revenue of $7.2 billion, according to a June release from Gartner, Inc.

SAP accounted for 23.8 percent market share, following its acquisition of Business Objects. Other market leaders were SAS Institute and Oracle (each with 14.6 percent), IBM, Microsoft and MicroStrategy.

Gartner Senior Research Analyst Dan Sommer notes that industry consolidation played a large role in the increased growth. "The large stack vendors, especially the application vendors, have put a lot of focus and sales power behind their newly acquired BI products, with accelerated migrations and upgrades in the installed base as a result," wrote Sommer.

Growth in the BI industry represents increased organizational attention to executing on business goals. BI, analytics and performance management help align business performance with strategy by providing information assets to decision-makers.

Sommer expects 2009 results to taper off since much of the low-hanging fruit of upselling to existing customers has already been realized.

Additional detail is available in the Gartner report "Market Share: Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management Software, Worldwide 2008."

Julie Langenkamp is editor-in-chief of Information Management. She can be reached at julie.langenkamp@sourcemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JulieLangenkamp.

Filed under:

Business Intelligence