BI Predictions for 2009

In the end of last year and in the first days of this year, I have read several articles and posts about BI predictions for 2009. I mentioned in my Twitter.

I think to make predictions is not easy, mainly in Information Technology, and the history shows several examples where the predictions failed. Niels Bohr said: "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future."


Below are some summaries and comments about posts and articles that BI experts wrote with predictions for 2009:

Ken Rudin wrote his predictions in Lucidera's blog:
- Cloud computing will cause a shift in the BI balance of power from IT to business users
- Simplicity will be the driving mantra for both consumers and vendors of BI
- The continued drive for simplicity will cause a shift towards prebuilt analytic solutions with best practices built in, and away from generic toolsets
- Data interpretation will become a significant challenge for new BI users

He concluded: "So, BI is facing new users and new challenges. With the impact of cloud computing, a shift in the balance of power for BI, additional focus and urgency on delivering simple solutions, and a few new challenges arising around data interpretation, 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for BI."


Neil Raden published his predictions in his Intelligent Entreprise's blog, in a post called Surround the Warehouse: Prediction for 2009. Below is the summary of his predictions:
- The data warehouse has been positioned as the sole source of analytical data in organizations, but that is changing.
- BI tools like Microstrategy have to retool to be able to query multiple sources to satisfy a single query .
- There will be a lot of talk about this and the use of unstructured content, too, but I don't see that happening in '09.
- There will be a lot of noise about the Cloud and x-aaS (SaaS, PaaS, DaaS, etc.), but I don't see that gaining as much actual revenue as it will airtime
- The organizations may see the potential utility of revivifying their data warehouse strategy, but they just don't know how to do it. So despite all of the innovative and useful things the industry comes up with, the data warehouse legacy is like a big boat anchor.

He finished with: "And that's why I see the "surround strategy" of augmenting BI with operational data while leaving the data warehouse in place as the best opportunity right now."


Ted Cuzzillo wrote a post in Enterprise Systems, and said: "A variety of sources tell me that the financial crisis will be 2009's primary driver, as trends from early this year accelerate."

His predictions are:
- The few big tools will start giving way to many small tools
- Business users will take more of BI back from analysts
- Analytics will gain new importance
- BI's focus will sharpen on the human factor
- BI will surge in the mid-market


James Taylor wrote his Predictions for 2009 in his blog on December, focused on Decision Management, and also compared with some BI predictions (Ken Rudin and Ted Cuzzillo, both commented above):
- Cloud computing will impact decision management
- More use of analytics by systems rather than people
- More focus on rules from application and platform vendors
- More business rule vendors
- More rules in Business Process Management
- Business rules to decision management
- Pre-built decisioning components
- Simulation and scenario management
- More business user control


IDC published its Predictions for 2009, I already commented in a previous post.


Colin White wrote a post called BI Predictions for 2009: What Ever It Takes to Get the Job Done, in his B-Eye-Network's blog. I highlight:
- The business intelligence (BI) marketplace has often been immune to industry downturns. This is because companies often turn to BI in difficult times to help them identify areas where revenues can be increased and costs can be reduced. This is especially the case in front office sales, marketing, and support organizations. Given the potential size of the coming downturn, however, can even BI be immune? I doubt it.
- The BI solutions that will have the most impact in 2009 will be those that provide IT and business users quick and low-cost approaches for discovering, accessing, integrating, analyzing, delivering and sharing information in a way that that helps business users become more productive and more self-sufficient.
- open source software, BI software-as-a-service, low-cost application appliances, search, the integration of BI with collaborative and social computing software, rich internet applications, web syndication, and data and presentation mashups.
- line-of-business IT rather than the enterprise IT organization. This could result in a turf war where enterprise IT tries to control and govern the use of these new technologies by the business.


Krish Krishnan commented about data warehouse appliances, in a post in his B-Eye-Network's blog:
"my predictions about data warehouse appliances going mainstream is indeed happening. Year 2009 will be a significant year for all types of data warehouse appliances and their vendors"


Timo Elliott wrote a different kind of prediction, called Why Will 2009 be a Great Year for Business Intelligence?, where he analyzed the situation, based on data from IDC, Gartner and others articles, and divided in topics:
- The Economy is Awful
- IT Spending is Still Increasing
- Business Intelligence Spending Even More Robust
- Which Vendors Will Do Best?

His Conclusion: "So despite a weak economy, IT spending growth remains positive. Within IT, software spending is the healthiest. And within software spending, BI is a top priority."


Lyndsay Wise wrote a post in his blog, I highlight:
"However, one good thing about business intelligence and performance management in general is that because of the promises of helping increase performance while potentially lowering costs, organizations that tend to over spend and under perform will need to account for their spending more than in the past. Consequently, the role of BI may become more important in many organizations..."


Search Data Management published yesterday an excellent article called Experts forecast business intelligence market trends for 2009, by Jeff Kelly, where Wayne Eckerson, James G. Kobielus and Gartner's analysts shared their BI forecasts.

Wayne Eckerson, Director of research and services for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI):
- Analytic database platforms go mainstream
- Open source BI gets evaluated
- Packaged analytic applications gain traction
- Software as a Service (SaaS) picks up in the midmarket
- Next-generation dashboards emerge
- Analytical literacy improves
- More analytical sandboxes come to the fore
- BI goes green
- Advanced visualization corrals BI
- Event-driven analytic platforms hit the scene

James G. Kobielus, Senior analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research covering BI and data warehousing:
- BI moves into the cloud
- BI adopting Web 2.0 development paradigm
- BI growing more federated
- BI evolving into advanced analytic applications

Gartner Inc. - Various Gartner Inc. analysts covering BI, including Bill Hostmann, Kurt Schlegel, Mark A. Beyer, Rita L. Sallam, Bill Gassman, Nigel Rayner, Neil McMurchy, Neil Chandler, Matthew W. Cain:
- By 2012, business units will control at least 40% of the total budget for BI
- Through 2012, more than 35% of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets
- By 2010, 20% of organizations will have an industry-specific analytic application delivered via SaaS as a standard component of their BI portfolio
- In 2009, collaborative decision making will emerge as a new product category that combines social software with BI platform capabilities
- By 2012, one-third of analytic applications applied to business processes will be delivered through large-grained application mashups.


Despite the economic crisis, and based on predictions of those experts, I think 2009 will be a good year for Business Intelligence. I'm optimistic about it.


P.S.: The Crystal Ball picture is just for illustrate the post, I know that the experts mentioned here made their predictions based on data, information, and their expertise and knowledge of BI market.