Business Intelligence market consolidation

There were a lot of acquisitions in Business Intelligence market in 2007 - making it the most turbulent year, so far, in BI. The BI industry has seen a wave of takeovers since the mid 1990s, with a dramatic boost in 1994 and 2003 but non of them can compare to 2007. 

The following consolidations belongs to the most spectacular ones:

  • Hyperion Solutions by Oracle
  • Business Objects by SAP
  • Cognos by IBM


Some of them were non-consolidating acquisitions like SAP with Business Objects and IBM with Cognos where Business Objects and Cognos become separate business units, whereas some of them were a genuine consolidations like Oracle with Hyperion where Hyperion was integrated to a much greater extent. 

The chart below shows consolidation trends and marekt share of top few vendors in 1994-2006. When we take into consideration top three OLAP vendors they control ca 64% of market, however five of them control almost 80%. 

Year

Company acquired

OLAP product(s)

Price

Acquirer

1994

Pilot

LightShip

~$28m

Dun & Bradstreet

1994

Info-Innov

Media

 

Speedware

1995

IOC

Track

 

DecisionWorks

1995

IRI Software

Express

$100m

Oracle

1995

Soft Systems

Data-Vision

$5.2m

IQ Software

1995

STG

MetaCube

$16.5m

Informix

1995

Prodea

Beacon

$36m

Platinum Technology

1996

Holistic Systems

Holos

$84m

Seagate Software

1996

Sinper

TM1

$11m

Applix

1996

Panorama

relaunched as OLAP Services

~$15m?

Microsoft

1997

Pilot Software

 

~$5m?

Platinum Equity Holdings

1997

Andyne

PaBLO

 

Hummingbird

1997

AppSource

WIRED for OLAP

$6.7m

Arbor Software

1998

Hyperion Software

Enterprise, Pillar

$600m

Arbor Software, immediately renamed to Hyperion Solutions

1998

IQ Software

Data-Vision

$36m

Information Advantage

1999

SQRIBE

 

$250m

Brio Technology, subsequently renamed to Brio Software

1999

Sapling

 

$15.5m

Hyperion Solutions

1999

Cartesis

Carat

 

PwC

1999

Platinum Technology

InfoBeacon (later renamed DecisionBase)

 

CA

1999

Information Advantage

MyEureka!

$168m

Sterling

1999

Next Action Technology

AnswerSets (later renamed to Set Analyzer)

$8m

Business Objects

2000

OLAP@Work

 

$15m

Business Objects

2000

Sterling

EUREKA:Suite

 

CA

2000

Pilot Software

 

$19m

Accrue

2000

Decision·ism

Aclue

$10m

Broadbase

2001

Showcase

Strategy

$94m

SPSS

2001

Maximal

Max (later renamed to Data Analyzer)

~$15m

Microsoft

2001

Informix

MetaCube

 

IBM

2002

Gentia

 

 

Open Ratings

2002

WhiteLight

 

 

SymphonyRPM

2002

Pilot

 

$1.5m

Pilot Software Acquisition Corporation

2003

Adaytum

e.Planning

$157m

Cognos

2003

Comshare

MPC and Decision

$52m

Geac

2003

CIP

Executive Suite

 

China Development Corporation

2003

Brio Software

Intelligence

$142m

Hyperion Solutions

2003

Crystal Decisions

Analysis, Holos

$1.2bn

Business Objects

2003

MIS AG

DecisionWare (including Alea), onVision, Plain and DeltaMiner

$42m

Systems Union

2004

Cartesis

Magnitude

 

Apax Partners Funds

2004

Alphablox

 

 

IBM

2004

Frango

Controller, Consolidator

$52m

Cognos

2004

IntelligentApps

 

 

Sage Group

2005

INEA

 

 

Cartesis

2005

SRC

 

$100m

Business Objects

2005

Siebel

Siebel Analytics

 

Oracle

2006

Geac

MPC

 

Golden Gate Capital (Extensity)

2006

ProClarity Corporation

ProClarity

~$50m

Microsoft

2006

Temtec

Executive Viewer

$14.5m

Applix

2006

MIS

DecisionWare (including Alea)

 

Infor (Golden Gate Capital)

2006

Extensity

MPC and DecisionWare

 

Infor (Golden Gate Capital)

2006

ALG

EPO

$56m

Business Objects

2007

Pilot Software

PilotWorks

 

SAP

2007

Hyperion Solutions

Essbase, Hyperion Planning, HFM, former Brio

$3.3bn

Oracle

2007

Cartesis

Cartesis Finance, Planning and Analytics

€225m (~$300m)

Business Objects

2007

OutlookSoft

OutlookSoft 5 (formerly Everest)

$375m?

SAP

2007

Applix

TM1 and Executive Viewer

$339m, $306m net

Cognos

2007

Longview Solutions

Khalix

$51.5m

Exact Software

2008

Business Objects

BusinessObjects, Crystal, Cartesis

$6.8bn
$5.9bn net

SAP

2008

Cognos

Cognos 8, Planning, Controller, TM1

$5bn

IBM

Business Intelligence tools

The table below shows history of the most important BI acquisitions since 1994.

source: www.olapreport.com