Global business intelligence (BI), corporate performance management (CPM) and analytics applications/performance management software market rose 6.8% during 2012 and generated revenues of about $13.1bn compared to $12.3bn in 2011, according to a new report.
Gartner’s latest "Market Share Analysis: Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management, 2012" report revealed that tough macro-conditions as well as confusion regarding emerging technology terms were responsible for moderate growth compared to earlier years.
Gartner principal research analyst Dan Sommer said after a few historic banner years of spend in the BI software market, which culminated in more than 17% growth in 2011, growth was more subdued in 2012, at 7%.
"While this seems like a dramatic drop, it was in line with our forecasts published during 2012," Sommer said.
The report revealed that BI software investment and growth in 2012 was also effected due to shifting of BI spending outside of IT, data discovery turning into a mainstream architecture and software as a service (SaaS).
During the year, SAP topped the list of firms with high revenue by generating $2.9bn, followed by Oracle, IBM , SAS and Microsoft, which generated revenues of $1.9bn, $1.62bn, $1.59bn and $1.2bn respectively .
In addition, the top five vendors collectively accounted for 70% of the overall BI software market revenue generated during the year.
Content from our partners
"The business intelligence space managed to grow by a reasonable seven percent in 2012, despite difficult macroconditions, being on the tail end of a spending cycle, and confusion related to emerging technology terms causing a hold on purse strings," Sommer said.
"On the positive side, data discovery became a mainstream architecture in 2012 and the vendors built on this paradigm gained market share, while most semantically layered BI platforms grew in the single digits, at best.
"Cloud-based buying is also starting to make an imprint on the radar, showing substantial growth, although cloud still accounts for a smaller portion of the BI market compared with other application markets."
Regionally, Europe and Latin America reported below average growth due to tough macro-conditions and currency headwinds, while Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia/Pacific, reported double-digit growths in 2012.
