Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

29 January 2010, Rita L. Sallam, Bill Hostmann, James Richardson, Andreas Bitterer
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00173700

In 2009, megavendors held almost two-thirds of business intelligence platform market share. But impatient business users increasingly turned to pure-play BI platforms, particularly those of small innovative vendors, to fill usability and time-to-value needs unmet by the larger vendors.

Market Overview

The market in 2009 was defined by the David and Goliathian struggle that occurred between resilient BI pure-play vendors and ostensibly omnipotent megavendors. The frenzy caused by major BI platform market consolidation in 2007 and 2008 gave way to a postacquisition hangover in 2009 in which megavendors' customers reported greater overall dissatisfaction due, in large part, to the often messy postacquisition "digestion" process.

Yet, despite megavendor acquisition "growing pains," stack-centric buying led by applications and information infrastructure dominated BI platform investment decisions in 2009 with the top five vendors controlling 75% of the market. At the same time, however, based on the research conducted for this report and interactions with Gartner customers over the year, there is significant, if not euphoric, satisfaction with, and accelerated interest in, pure-play BI platforms. This is particularly true for smaller, innovative vendors filling needs left unmet by the larger vendors. To understand this paradox, it is necessary to consider a number of factors that are driving the BI platform buying decision today:

Thanks to Tableau Software - Positioned as Challenger in Gartner report - for providing this reprint of
Gartner 2010 Magic Quadrant Report for Business Intelligence Platforms.