Deal Enables Oracle to Pursue Wider 'Decisioning' Opportunity (Gartner)

Buying Sigma Dynamics' assets moves Oracle beyond CRM-centric real-time analytics and into the broader decision management arena. But Oracle will need development partners and internal buy-in to capitalize on this move.

BI Goes Deep (Line56)

As business operations become increasingly more complex in the global environment, enterprises require enhanced business intelligence at the deepest level

Revenues Rise, but Net Income Dips for BI Vendors (RFG)

Revenues Rise, but Net Income Dips for BI Vendors

Lead analyst: John Van Decker

Actuate Corp., Business Objects SA, Cartesis, and MicroStrategy, Inc. announced mixed financial results for the quarter ended Jun. 30, 2006. In addition, Cognos, Inc. announced mixed earnings for the first quarter of its 2007 fiscal year, ended May 31, 2006.

Focal Points:

• Business Objects reported that total revenues for the second quarter of 2006 increased 12 percent year-over-year to $294 million. Revenue from licenses was down 1 percent compared to the year-ago quarter to $123 million. Specifically, license revenues from performance management solutions rose 69 percent over the second quarter of 2005 to $15 million, and license revenues from data quality and integration solutions rose 79 percent to $12 million. Meanwhile, license revenues from business intelligence (BI) solutions fell 12 percent year-over-year to $96 million, Business Objects said. The company also reported a dip in net income, from $23.1 million, or 25 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2005, to $7.9 million, or 8 cents per share.
• Actuate announced that total revenues for the second quarter of 2006 were $31.7 million, a 23-percent year-over-year increase. Revenue from licenses grew 27 percent over the same period in 2005 to $11.2 million. Net income for the quarter was $1.6 million, or 2 cents per share, said Actuate. This is compared to a net income of $3.5 million, or 6 cents per share, for the same period last year, Actuate added. MicroStrategy also announced results for the second quarter of its 2006 fiscal year. Total revenues rose 13 percent year-over-year, from $65.4 million to $74.1 million. According to the vendor, this marked the company's fourteenth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth. Revenue from licenses was $23.1 million, a 5-percent decrease compared to the $24.3 million reported in the second quarter of 2005, MicroStrategy said. Finally, MicroStrategy announced net income for the quarter fell from $17.6 million to $16.6 million, or $1.21 per share.
• Cartesis announced results for the fourth quarter of its 2006 fiscal year. The company claims record software revenues, with annual growth of 28 percent. Total license revenues for the fourth quarter grew 43 percent year-over-year, and international license revenue grew 114 percent year-over-year, according to the vendor. Cartesis also reported that 40 percent of license revenue came from new clients, and annual license revenue from performance management products grew 38 percent. Finally, Cognos reported that revenues for the first quarter of 2007 rose year-over-year, from $200.1 million to $217.0 million. Revenue from licenses was $73.7 million, compared with $71.1 million for the year-ago quarter, said Cognos. Net income was $14.5 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with $20.4 million, or 22 cents per share last year, Cognos added.

RFG believes the business intelligence (BI) and business performance management (BPM) markets will continue to see major investment from leading enterprises through 2010. Many firms have not been able to get the full expected value out of their ERP investments. Those companies have therefore invested in reporting and analysis tools to get critical actionable information into the appropriate hands within the enterprise. That investment is now shifting away from one-off reporting tools to more analytical suites for metrics management, planning, and reporting, including components for data quality and BPM. Meanwhile, although many vendors are announcing increased revenues, they are not necessarily seeing the same growth in net income. RFG believes that is due to several common factors. Most notable among these are increased marketing required to maintain differentiation over competition, increased integration and development costs for newly acquired solutions, and more money spent on research and development. The next major wave in BI and BPM will be to integrate business process management within these suites. IT and business executives should develop a plan for BI and BPM within their business application architecture and seek to replace disparate reporting tools with more enterprise-wide approaches, adding new functionality as appropriate, such as planning, metrics management and process management. (See the RFG Research Notes "Understanding the Consolidating BPM Landscape and How to React," Parts One and Two, and the RFG Research Brief "Examples of Business Process Management (BPM) Solutions and Vendors.")

Raising the Bar on Data Quality and Management? (RFG)

Raising the Bar on Data Quality and Management?

Lead Analysts: John Van Decker

Business Objects SA announced its BusinessObjects Data Quality data quality software suite, while Evolutionary Technologies International, Inc. (ETI) released its latest data quality product. Teradata, a division of NCR Corp., also announced that it has entered the master data management market with both product and consulting expertise.

Focal Points:

• Business Objects Data Quality XI is based on the data quality product set the company acquired with its purchase of Firstlogic, Inc. earlier this year. The new tool allows enterprises to scale their data quality solution deployments into a single corporate implementation, to establish a "single version of the truth," according to the company. The product features a centralized repository that enables rapid creation and consistent application of business rules, the company added. Data Quality XI works with solutions from Informatica Corp., Oracle Corp. (including those from the former PeopleSoft and Siebel), and SAP AG, Business Objects said. An automated watch list can be established with the new tool, to support USA PATRIOT Act initiatives and help avoid situations that would put corporations at risk, according to Business Objects. Improved integration with Business Objects' popular Crystal Reports tool promotes easy statistical analysis, while a new match wizard helps administrators fine-tune data quality strategies, the company added.
• ETI released its latest data quality tools, ETI Data Profiler and ETI Data Cleanser. Both are intended to extend the capabilities of the company's ETI Solution V5 software and ETI High Performance Connectors, according to the company. ETI Data Profiler automatically discovers content, quality, and structure patterns from a variety of data sources at the outset of an IT project, according to ETI. The tool features automated discovery and analysis, and tracks data quality improvement actions and problem resolution progress through its issue management feature, the company added. ETI Data Cleanser helps resolve data conflicts and inconsistencies via matching technology based on fuzzy logic, and uses advanced algorithms to correct replacement, transposition, and semantic error types, the company said. The tool can run concurrently with production systems, or offline in batch mode, ETI added.
• Teradata announced the availability of its Master Data Management (MDM) product, which enables companies to classify customer, product, and supplier data shared across the corporation, according to the company. Teradata is also developing new suite of MDM applications intended to deliver additional value. The first of these, Teradata Product Information Management, is available now, the company said. Complementary modules, including Customer Data Integration, will be released later, Teradata added. The company also announced that it has acquired additional development and consulting expertise to help meet enterprise data management needs.

RFG believes data quality and management solutions will become increasingly important to more enterprises through 2006, with additional ramp-up from 2007 through 2010. Business intelligence (BI) solution vendors have deemed this valuable for their platforms, and it is also an important capability for transactional systems, such as those used for ERP. Business Objects has made major investments during the past couple of years to extend its reporting capabilities, through the acquisition of Crystal. The company has also extended the functional capabilities of its solutions, through acquisitions such as that of SRC Software. These latest data quality announcements further extend the company's solution set, and represent the state of the art in integrated BI/business performance management (BPM) suites. The ETI announcement, meanwhile, underscores the value of solutions that help to achieve and maintain high levels of data quality. Overall, data quality can improve automated discovery and analysis, as well as major enterprise initiatives such as regulatory compliance. The addition of MDM capabilities to the Teradata product set is another acknowledgment of the enormity of the corporate data management challenge. IT executives should seek opportunities to improve BI, BPM, and operational solutions with data quality and management initiatives, and consistent, enterprise-wide data architectures. IT decision-makers should also consider both suite-based and standalone best-of-breed products when seeking solutions to improve enterprise data quality and management capabilities. (See the RFG Research Note "Data Architecture: The Key to Information Services.")