This is from Brian Moran who writes a lot in SQL Server Magazine:
This summer, leading IT research firm IDC released a report that
evaluates the business intelligence (BI) tools and vendor market for
the period 2003 through 2005. The study has been on the Microsoft site
for a while and if you are a BI person, you might have already read it.
But if you don't think of yourself in those terms, chances are you
haven't read the full report or even scanned the executive summary.
[snip...]
But trust me, reading the report is worth an investment of time if you're a
database professional, even if you're not a "BI person." More and more,
BI and related technologies are starting to seep into everyday usage
within database environments. IDC suggests that trends in the BI market
happen in 15-year cycles. IDC also asserts that "the next wave in BI
has now begun;" in a few years, we'll look back to see that 2005 was
the beginning of a 15-year cycle that focused on "expanding the reach
of BI to more users both inside and outside the organization and a move
to automate more decision processes by combining QRA (query reporting
and analysis) and advanced analytics functionality."
Probably not tomorrow or next week, but sometime sooner than you
realize, you'll find it hard to be a senior database professional
without having at least a modest grasp of BI technologies.
[snip...]
The report provides some interesting market-share data that will
interest BI veterans and provides a nice introduction to BI terms and
jargon that will help newbies better understand the competitive
landscape.
The link for the Microsoft article is here.
(If the link stops working at some point, send me an email and I'll send you the article.)
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