Business Objects steps up midmarket BI focus
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(InfoWorld) - Business Objects has released the second of three planned versions of its Crystal Decisions business intelligence software suiteÂ aimed at midmarket users. Rather than viewing other BI pure-plays as its main competitors, the vendor increasingly sees Microsoft as its rival for midmarket customers' loyalty and is trying to differentiate its offerings accordingly. Crystal Decisions Professional Edition, which debuted Tuesday, follows the February release of a Standard version of the suite aimed at users with no previous experience with BI software. The Professional version builds on the Standard Edition, adding data integration so that users can extract information from a variety of databases, including Microsoft's SQL Server, IBM's DB2, and databases from Oracle, Sybase, and Ingres. Still to come is the third member of the family, Crystal Decisions Premium Edition, due out in the fourth quarter. The Premium release will also include performance management functions such as score cards, metrics, and goals, according to Todd Rowe, vice president of worldwide midmarket business at Business Objects. "We took a stair-step approach in adding functionality" when designing midmarket versions of the company's enterprise BI software, Rowe said. All offerings share the same code set so thatÂ a midmarket user has the ability to upgrade to the enterprise software. The midmarket offerings are focused on simplicity, integration, and aggressive price points, he added. Business Objects has added wizards, prebuilt templates, reports, and data marts for users who are migrating to their first BI software from simple spreadsheet applications. The vendor has also spent time creating integrated suites since, unlike enterprise users, midmarket customers don't tend to have employees who work on tying together individual BI modules. The midmarket products sell from theÂ low tens of thousands of U.S. dollars compared to $100,000 to $150,000 for enterprise versions. Business Objects defines midmarket companies as those reporting less than $1 billion in revenue or with less than 1,000 staff. With perhaps only 10 to 15 percent of those customers currently using BI software, Rowe said the primary competitor for Business Objects in the midmarket is market awareness. The market is also highly fragmented, with analysts estimating that 18 software vendors divide up 80 percent of the market. "Microsoft is our primary competitor for midmarket for the medium to longer term," Rowe said. "We're no longer focusing as much on CognosÂ or other BI pure-plays." Business Objects is trying to differentiate itself from Microsoft by offering Crystal Decisions not only on Windows but on two flavors of Linux: Red Hat and Suse. The company also believes it's ahead of the game in providing the Professional version that includes BI and data integration in a single product. Business Objects has made a number of acquisitions in performance management, including the recent purchase of Cartesis for around $300 million. The vendor is currently integrating the planning and budgeting capabilities it has bought but will look to offer that functionality for the midmarket in 2008, Rowe said. Business Objects has yet to determine what that midmarket budgeting and planning product will look like. It could be the fourth member of the Crystal Decisions family, or itÂ could be a separate offering, he added. Pricing for Crystal Decisions Professional Edition starts from $35,000 in North America for five concurrent users on a single Windows or Linux server. Pricing elsewhere in the world will vary according to local market conditions. The software is available in 12 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
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(InfoWorld) - Business Objects SA's share price surged in Paris Thursday morning, as rumors swirled of a takeover bid from IBM Corp. or Oracle Corp. Buying the French BI (business intelligence) software vendor could be a good way for IBM or Oracle to use the cash they have available, according to one analyst. The three companies declined to comment. "We don't comment on rumors," said Business Objects spokesman Philippe Laguerre. Oracle made a big push into the BI market on March 22 with the launch of three software bundles branded Oracle Business Intelligence Suite. The bundles combine Oracle's database, its Fusion middleware and analytics software it acquired with its purchase of Siebel Systems. That deal, worth almost US$6 billion, closed on Jan. 31. IBM already partners with BI vendor Cognos Inc., a rival of Business Objects. On March 7, IBM announced that it will work more closely with Cognos to develop BI software with a SOA (service-oriented architecture). At the time, analysts suggested that acquiring Cognos would be a logical next step for IBM. Such a move could be hastened if Oracle were to bid for Business Objects, said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum Ltd. in London. Bradshaw dismissed another rumor he had heard, that German ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor SAP AG could buy Business Objects. "They have not made many large acquisitions, and they already have their own BI technology," he said. The BI market is dominated by a group of large, independent vendors. Business Objects expects revenue to total $1.2 billion to $1.215 billion this year. Cognos expects revenue of $950 million to $970 million in its current financial year, which ends Feb. 28. Of the other large BI vendors, only Teradata belongs to another company (NCR Corp.), Bradshaw said. Based on Business Objects' market capitalization, a buyer would have to pay over â¬2 billion ($2.5 billion) for the company, he said. Business Objects and Cognos "have been around a while. Maybe the other players like having independents in the field," said Bradshaw. But should IBM and Oracle choose to change that status quo, buying Business Objects would be harder for Oracle than it looks, he said. "At first glance, it looks like a marriage made in heaven, but most of Oracle's customers already have at least one BI system," and often more, he said. Oracle applications have to work well with those different BI tools, and customers value that flexibility, he said. "Future customers would not want to be confined to having one BI tool." Trading in Business Objects shares opened in Paris at â¬24.80 on Thursday, up from the Wednesday closing price of â¬23.02. As the rumors spread, the price peaked at â¬25 but by the close of trading had settled back to â¬24.76, up 7.6 percent on the previous day's close.
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Attendees at the Information Builders user conference say that once end-user issues are resolved, BI tools are proving beneficial to corporate bottom lines.
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InfoWorld - IBM&#160;hopes to bring BI to a wider audience of midmarket customers with a new software stack developed in partnership with Business Objects SA, industry sources said.
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Oracle introduced a new BI platform yesterday, Business Intelligence 10g that rolls up into one solution all of their BI tools. However, more interesting than the nitty-gritty details of what is included is the back story taking place at the same time.
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Business Objects has released the second of three planned versions of its Crystal Decisions business intelligence software suiteÂ aimed at midmarket users.
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SAP acquired Norwegian software company iLytix Systems earlier this month in a move aimed at introducing a new business intelligence (BI) tool to its small business product suite, Business One. The tool, XL Reporter, enables Business One users to export data to Microsoft's Excel program without having to reformat each report. It also allows them to create new financial and business reports or modify existing ones, schedule reports for automatic delivery, and create "what if" scenarios quickly with new point-and-click and drag-and-drop features.
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Business Objects reported a 19 percent rise in revenue for the third quarter, driven by services, but earnings were dragged down by a shortfall in license revenue, recent acquisitions and legal costs.While the income figures are broadly in line with preliminary results announced on Oct. 7, the company had expected its earnings to be better. The results come about two weeks after&#160;SAP announced plans to acquire Business Objects&#160;for $6.7 billion.Earnings for the quarter fell to $6.4 million, or $0.07 per share, from $19.6 million, or $0.21 per share, a year earlier, Business Objects said. It had predicted earnings of $0.16 to $0.20 per share.The earnings reported include a charge of around $7 million, equivalent to $0.05 per share, to settle litigation with Decision Warehouse. Business Objects had previously honored Decision Warehouse as its top distributor in Latin America: the company now resells products from&#160;Hyperion, which was recently bought by Oracle, and&#160;BEA Systems, which Oracle is trying to buy.Revenue for the quarter, which ended Sept. 30, was $369 million, up 19 percent compared to a year earlier. The growth was driven by revenue from services such as product maintenance, up 27 percent, and consulting and training, up 34 percent year on year.Growth in license revenue lagged, up just 6 percent compared to a year earlier, although license revenue from all product lines continued to grow, the company said.The&#160;acquisition of Cartesis, completed on June 1, and of&#160;Inxight Software, completed on July 3, added around $21 million in revenue for the quarter.Business Objects also profited from exchange rate fluctuations: while total revenue grew 19 percent year on year, at constant currency rates it grew just 15 percent, while license revenue grew 2 percent at constant currency rates.Business Objects warned that there&#39;s more uncertainty ahead -- and not just because of SAP&#39;s bid for the company, announced Oct. 7.The unexpected shortfall in third-quarter licensing revenue, added to uncertainty about customers&#39; future spending ahead of the merger, prompted the company to withdraw previously issued financial guidance.
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Business Objects has started to roll out a full suite of business intelligence (BI) software in the form of an online service, initially for customers using Salesforce.com applications.
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Leveraging its acquisition of Trego, an ISV with a product information management system, IBM unveiled additional middleware components to work with the Trego technology to ensure product data synchronization between retailers and suppliers.
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Blog: BEA's Aqualogic-branded collaboration tools look to take consumer Web techniques to business setting.
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Enterprise software giant's midmarket-focused service to compete with those of Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Oracle.
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Right-time business intelligence is all about delivering the right information in the right format to the right people at the right time for decision-making purposes .In this report, we present an in-depth case study describing the right-time BI solution implemented by Sybase customer Shopzilla to improve the effectiveness of business decisions.  The company uses Sybase IQ to capture and access merchant consumer survey data in a data warehouse.
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Microsoft has extended the reach of its business data platform, demonstrating new business intelligence capabilities for SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.
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Since acquiring Crystal Decisions in 2003, Business Objects has been working to integrate Crystal Reports into its business intelligence suite. Crystal is now part of BusinessObjects Enterprise XI, but it also continues to be available separately. And Crystal Reports XI is no mere rebranding â itâs a significant advancement in the Crystal reporting world. Crystal XI has several new features that make it not only easier to author, but also to manage and view reports.ADVERTISEMENTWhite paper: Solutions to Address IT Control RequirementsLearn how BMC Software Solutions address requirements such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 in this 20 page whitepaper!
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(InfoWorld) - IBMÂ hopes to bring BI to a wider audience of midmarket customers with a new software stack developed in partnership with Business Objects SA, industry sources said. The stack includes IBM's DB2 Data Warehouse Edition, Business Objects' Crystal Decisions, and a version of the Linux OS from Red Hat or Novell, the sources said. The products have been integrated and come on a single disk so they can be installed on a server at the customer's premises to get a BI system up and running quickly, the sources said. IBM has worked to simplify the installation process by automating setup and configuration tasks, reducing room for error. The result is a BI appliance that can be set up and ready to load data far more quickly than most BI systems today, according to one source. The software is expected to be announced in the coming weeks and shown at the Cebit trade show in Germany later this month. A shipping date wasn't available, and representatives from IBM and Business Objects declined to comment. The product is being tested by some customers now, a source said. It comes at an interesting time for BI software, which is used by companies to collect and analyze data and help them improve the performance of their business. On Thursday,Â Oracle announced a deal to acquire BI software company Hyperion SolutionsÂ for $3.3 billion, and analysts predict more consolidation as big vendors like IBMÂ and MicrosoftÂ add further BI capabilities to their products. The product from IBM is an attempt to make BI more appealing to midsize customers -- a market Business Objects has been targeting with its recently launched Business Objects Crystal Decisions. It may be followed by similar products from IBM aimed at bigger companies and with software from other partners. The new product is a "soft appliance," or a stack of software for a specific task delivered ready to install on a server. It differs from a true appliance server, in which the software and hardware are delivered together with the software preinstalled. Some other vendors, notably Netezza, sell data warehousing appliances with some analytics capabilities built in. IBM may be going a step further by including third-party BI tools as well -- although analysts said it's difficult to tell how innovative the product is without having seen it. Alys Woodward, an analyst with IDC, called it a new approach for IBM and one that validates the server appliance model. It could also help Business Objects to fend off a challenge in the midmarket from Microsoft, which has been adding BI capabilities to its SQL Server database, she said. Ian Charlesworth, an analyst with Ovum, said Business Objects was the right partner for IBM to pick. "Crystal Decisions is very popular. It's easy to install, and it's lightweight. If you were looking to do a one-disk install, that would probably be the best one you could choose," he said. Each server can scale up to about a terabyte of data, and an entry-level system for 100GB of data could be priced at around $25,000, including the hardware and software, a source said. Jonathan Eunice, an analyst with Illuminata, called it an attractive entry price, although the value of the system will depend on its performance capabilities and other parameters, he said.
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French software maker Business Objects released the first of three new versions of its business intelligence software tailored for small to medium-size companies, a market area poised for growth, the company said Monday.