The OLAP Report: How not to buy an OLAP product

The OLAP Report: How not to buy an OLAP product: "OLAP products differ from each other much more than do, for example, relational databases, programming languages, word processors or presentation graphics packages which greatly increases the scope for confusion when selecting an OLAP product. Just to add to the problems, neither IT professionals nor end-users are fully equipped, on their own, to make properly informed OLAP selections (whereas each of the other products listed above could be chosen by one group without help from the other). This means that, unlike most other software, OLAP evaluations must involve both users and IT. But in many organizations, IT and end-users have trouble communicating with each other and are often barely on speaking terms. Consequently, we frequently come across companies who have made strange product choices, often because they started with a bizarre shortlist consisting of the contradictory preferences of the technical and business groups."

The OLAP Report: Consolidated BI

The OLAP Report: Consolidated BI: "The BI industry has seen a wave of acquisitions since the mid 1990s, with takeovers occurring every few months. The first wave was mainly other companies who were attracted by the higher growth rates in the BI industry and preferred to buy an existing vendor rather than to develop their own product. These changes of ownership did not produce any consolidation because there was no net reduction in the number of BI vendors or products. There was also no reduction in competition as market shares were not concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Examples of such non-consolidating acquisitions include the entry of the various database vendors into the BI market, including Oracle's purchase of the Express business from IRI Software, Informix buying STG MetaCube and Microsoft's purchase of the Panorama technology."