Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of Its BI Universe | AMR Research

Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of Its BI Universe | AMR Research

Virtually all information can be categorized in a two-by-two matrix: internal versus external and structured versus unstructured. In BI, it has become abundantly clear that virtually all the BI action (and almost all the money) is in only one of the quadrants: internal structured data. But Business Objects, a leading business intelligence/performance management (BI/PM) vendor, has made a strategic bet that the walls of these quadrants will come down sooner rather than later by acquiring text analytics vendor Inxight Software, a company that originally spun out from Xerox PARC in 1997. With more than 400 customers and a healthy OEM business, Inxight is well established in this emerging market.

The intriguing things about this acquisition come from some of the capabilities of the Inxight platform that don’t get as much play: unstructured information access, federated search, and some data visualization. Couple these with Business Objects’ existing data integration business and you get a richer information integration suite that can extract and transform a wide array of data types. There is definite demand for Inxight’s broad set of abilities, but not a lot of expertise available (see “Search Redefined (Again): Looking for Business Intelligence”).

The discipline BI/PM vendors bring to the information access and analysis space should accelerate text analytics’ use across a broader range of businesses. In our opinion, Business Objects has taken a definitive step to expand what BI means. Owning this asset gives them a lot more latitude in how they shape the convergence issue going forward.

How will others respond and is more convergence on the way? What’s the future of text analytics in the greater BI/PM world? For answers, see “Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of its BI Universe.”