Business Objects leads BI in Western Europe

Business Objects SA's 2003 acquisition of Crystal Decisions Inc continues to keep the company at the top of analyst market share charts for business intelligence software. IDC latest number crunch shows that Paris-based Business Objects widened its lead in Western European BI tools market with only a 20% share - which shows how fragmented the market really is.

By CBR Staff Writer

IDC’s report states that Business Objects BI-related revenues totaled $287.5m in the region in 2004 – representing growth of 16%. According to IDC Business Objects’ revenue is more than 60% larger than its closest competitor in Western Europe – a figure that rivals like Cognos Inc and Hyperion Solutions Corp will find hard to swallow.

IDC defines BI tools broadly as: query, reporting and analysis tools, data mining software and packaged data mart and data warehousing applications. Its clearly in the first category (query, reporting and analysis) where Business Objects reigns; IDC says that Business Objects captured 25% of this segment and is a leading provider in the UK, France Germany and Italy.

Admittedly, BusinessObjects’ market share swelled considerably after it absorbed the widely used Crystal Reports product line into its BusinessObjects XI platform.

BI pegs the BI market for Western Europe to be worth more that $1.4bn in 2004.