Global business intelligence (BI) platform, analytic applications and performance management (PM) software revenue grew to $10.5bn in 2010, an increase of 13.4% from 2009 revenue of $9.3bn, according to research company Gartner.
The four large vendors (SAP, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft) continue to consolidate the market, owning 59% of the market share. In the BI platform and CPM suite segments, they hold close to two-thirds market share, while in analytic applications, SAS dominates the market.
There is ongoing BI tools consolidation in the IT-department, and, a new wave of lighter footprint data discovery tools and analytic applications are proliferating in business units, said Gartner.
The research firm said that business users care less about who they buy from; they want domain-specific functionality and usability that meet their needs.
SAP remained the top vendor in combined worldwide BI, analytics and PM software revenue in 2010, accounting for 23% of the market, followed by Oracle (15.6%), SAS Institute (13.2%), IBM (11.6) and Microsoft (8.7%).
Gartner principal research analyst Dan Sommer said in 2010, the global resurgence from stimulus packages, general improvement in the macro-economy, and new product releases contributed to a surge in BI software spending.
"BI spending has far surpassed IT budget growth overall for several years, and it is clear that BI continues to be a technology at the centre of information-driven initiatives in organisations," Sommer said.
"Vendors aggressively market their capabilities in this area, so revenue growth is as much a function of vendor push as a demand pull."
