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Cindi Howson's BI Scorecard
Cindi Howson is the founder of BIScorecard, a Web site for in-depth BI product reviews. She has been using, implementing and evaluating business intelligence tools for more than 15 years. She is the author of Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App and Business Objects XI R2: The Complete Reference. She teaches for The Datawarehousing Institute (TDWI) and is a frequent speaker at industry events. See More by Cindi Howson Face Off: Business Objects vs. Oracle (and Microsoft)
When Business Objects first acquired SRC software in Q3 2005, some industry and financial experts wondered, "why SRC, a little known budgeting, planning, and financial consolidation vendor … why not a stronger performance management player such as Cartesis or OutlookSoft?" Fast forward 18 months and Business Objects did exactly that, announcing late Sunday night its intent to acquire Cartesis. What changed in these last 18 months? Did Business Objects discover something lacking in its current performance management offerings? Or perhaps the move follows on the heels of Oracle, which completed the acquisition of leading performance management vendor Hyperion last week. And then there is Microsoft, which plans to release Performance Point in the near future. In many respects, Business Objects appears to be buying market share in the performance management space, where Cartesis has a stronger position than Business Objects' current offering. There is definitely overlap in the two companies' product lines. While CEO John Schwarz said that the planning modules of both vendors serve distinct needs (SRC/Business Objects Planning for departments and Cartesis Planning for the enterprise), the company's official presentation doesn't even mention Business Objects current financial consolidation and reporting capabilities. One area where Cartesis brings a unique strength is in its compliance capabilities. What Business Objects brings to Cartesis customers is best-of-breed BI capabilities, where Cartesis had no products and did not compete. As the BI and performance management markets converge (a strategy the industry is clearly pursuing but one that customers are slower to pursue), the acquisition makes strategic sense. How much is Performance Management (PM) and Business Intelligence (BI) converging at your company? Take this quick poll and I'll share the results in a future blog. Cindi Howson  E-MAIL | SLASHDOT | DIGG This is a public forum. CMP Technology and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. CMP Technology makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers. Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of CMP Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in CMP Technology's Terms of Service. Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.
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