BI space set to be a bitter battleground

Gartner predicts software vendors will encroach on service providers' territory in BI and analytics space

Vendors will increasingly develop BI services to rival those of their partners, according to the latest missive from market watcher Gartner.

The analyst predicted that the CIO focus on BI and analytics looks set to continue through to 2017, but the provider landscape will change dramatically between now and then as vendors try to muscle their way in with customers.

Roy Schulte, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said: "Major changes are imminent to the world of BI and analytics including the dominance of data discovery techniques, wider use of real-time streaming event data and the eventual acceleration in BI and analytics spending when big data finally matures. As the cost of acquiring, storing and managing data continues to fall, companies are finding it practical to apply BI and analytics in a far wider range of situations."

Gartner outlined four key predictions for BI and analytics.

Firstly, by 2015, the majority of BI vendors will make data discovery their prime BI platform offering, shifting BI emphasis from reporting-centric to analysis-centric.

Secondly, by 2017, more than 50 per cent of analytics implementations will use event data streams generated from instrumented machines, applications and/or individuals.

And thirdly – the most pertinent for the channel – by 2017, analytic applications offered by software vendors will be indistinguishable from analytic applications offered by service providers.

Gartner claims this is because traditional vendors of analytic platforms recognise that in order to expand their reach beyond traditional power users, they need to deliver packaged domain expertise and applications to enable user self-service.

This creates a wider choice for end-user customers, but will mean software vendors are facing a co-opetition situation with their traditional service provider channels, forcing them to improve their own professional service capabilities.

Gartner’s final prediction is that until 2016, big data confusion will constrain spending on BI and analytics software to single-digit growth.

And despite the strong interest, confusion around big data is inhibiting spending on BI and analytics software. However, when big data matures and more packaged IP is available, big data analytics will become "hugely disruptive", Gartner claimed.