Business Objects ended 2005 again as the leading BI software vendor, with $795 million in BI tools revenue and a 14% market share. Business Objects is the dominant query, reporting, and analysis vendor, with a broad user base spanning all major geographic regions, company size segments, and industries. Building on this base, the company has ambitious goals for growth. This growth can either be organic or involve further acquisitions. Both paths will likely contribute to Business Objects’ top line over the foreseeable future, with most of the organic growth coming from query, reporting, and analysis tools from both expanding the company’s user base within enterprise accounts and deeper penetration of midsize organizations.
However, competitive pressures, especially from database vendors, suggest that organic growth will not be sufficient to maintain even low double-digit growth rates for software revenue, which would make another acquisition an attractive option for Business Objects. Such an acquisition is unlikely to be in the company’s existing stronghold segment of query, reporting, and analysis but could instead involve adding advanced analytics, search, business process management, or packaged analytic applications products into its portfolio.
Products of Business Objects:
User Module, Designer, Supervisor, Auditor, Set Analyzer, Info View (Web Intelligence), Business Objects Software Development Kit (SDK), Broadcast Agent etc.
