Oracle has unveiled three new business intelligence offerings.
Branded as Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, the bundles are built on Oracle’s 10g database and Fusion middleware infrastructure and various reporting and analytics tools.
Oracle has tiered the bundles in entry-level, Standard and Enterprise editions. The entry-level offering, Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition One, is aimed at SMBs and is designed to compete directly against Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005.
Meanwhile the Oracle Business Intelligence Standard and Enterprise editions are aimed at existing Oracle users and heterogeneous environments, respectively. They also come with pre-integrated Oracle infrastructure but throw more advanced tools like Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Reports and the Oracle BI Spreadsheet Add-In (for Excel) into the mix.
Significantly, the Enterprise edition also bundles in analytic technology from Siebel Analytics, which Oracle gained as part of its $6 billion purchase of CRM firm Siebel Systems.
Siebel’s Analytics business was the jewel in its crown, growing at a cut-throat pace of 45% per annum and accounting for nearly 25% of its revenue stream prior to its takeover. Oracle is hoping to capitalize on that momentum to fuel its own BI ambitions.
Officials are positioning Oracle Business Intelligence Suite as the latest deliverable of its Fusion strategy. Oracle says it is now ready to articulate a comprehensive BI strategy that it is building on top of its new Fusion middleware stack.
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At a special event held in New York City, Oracle president Charles Phillips said the company would ramp up its BI business in a similar way to how it has ramped up its middleware business via Fusion over the past couple of years.
But Oracle isn’t the only software giant pushing the BI envelope. Its chief rival in the business applications market, SAP, is also ramping up its BI capabilities. SAP is planning to unleash functional BI upgrades and new products included in the next full release of its SAP NetWeaver BI platform, which is expected in the next couple of months.
IBM also recently fleshed out its BI and data warehousing portfolio – issuing new releases of its DB2 Warehouse Edition, which ships with DB2 Alphablox.
