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Report Summary: Business Intelligence Market Consolidation
What took place from April through June, 2019 was the most significant BI market consolidation in more than a decade. Sure, market events like the emergence of Tableau and self-service BI in general were significant on their own. But these were nonetheless gradual and discrete developments, part of an evolving ecosystem that welcomes new vendors, and new offerings from existing vendors, over periods of years. The recent consolidation contrasts markedly with such typical calm and orderly progression. With a slew of deals in a period of just 10 weeks, the market calculus has been transformed. To understand this better, we need to examine the deals.
- The race is on, in the white-hot areas of cloud, analytics, and AI. The recent BI market consolidation demonstrates this and it’s the reason even more mergers are likely to come.
- The bigger mergers beg questions around the parties’ compatibility, in terms of corporate culture, messaging, cloud orientation, and, of course, technology. Existing customers beware.
- The BI consolidation of 2007-2008 sucked oxygen out of the then-acquired platforms and created opportunities for new ones to emerge. That M&A round provides lessons for vendors and cautions for customers this time around
- The fierce loyalty of Tableau customers, based in no small part on the company’s independence and personality, is at risk, as those customers watch their hero company’s vaunted brand subjugated to a new parent.’s
- Microsoft stands to gain from the churn and uncertainty, as the company’s stability offers sanctuary from the market upheaval.
- Disruption-averse customers may wish to re-platform, migrating to vendors whose stability is more assured.
- AI is the next frontier, both for innovation and M&A activity. And BI platforms are in position to bring AI to the mainstream.
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