Pure-play BI tool and data warehouse vendors continue to struggle for ownership of BI with large customers. Meanwhile, business application vendors such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft, are disrupting the market by embedding BI tools and functions into front-line applications. Oracle's purchase of Siebel and Hyperion advances the company's business process integration strategy and reduces its customer's reliance on pure-play BI tools.

The Three Phases of BI Evolution

BI is now in the early part of the third phase of its evolution. The following table summarizes the primary challenges associated with each phase. Where BI is concerned, Info-Tech considers large implementations to have 3 terabytes or more of enterprise data and 25 or greater source systems. However medium implementations are considered to be greater than 1 terabyte but less than 3 and between 5 and 20 source systems...