Since at least 2008, enterprises have tried to standardize their BI platform and applications to reduce the number of vendors they must manage, save money and improve the sharing of information. In a recent survey of 897 BI leaders from enterprises around the world, we found that 53% of enterprises now standardize, generally on the BI offerings of the megavendors IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, and of the large pure-play vendors, which have the most complete set of technologies (see Note 1). BI leaders' satisfaction varies between megavendors, and between megavendors and pure-play vendors. Moreover, enterprises that standardize continue to buy technologies from other vendors as business users seek ease of use and deployment. BI leaders that need to deploy new BI technology, upgrade existing systems or standardize on one vendor should consider the experiences of their peers before making any purchase decisions. Overview of Customer Experiences With BI Vendors: Gartner gathered information on three aspects of the customer experience: software quality, support, and sales experience. Respondents sent a mixed message about their satisfaction with their BI platform vendors (see Figure 1 and Notes 2 and 3). Most vendors received good scores for their sales process, with all but a few vendors scoring 8 out of 10. But vendors scored much lower for support and software quality, with the average rating of less than 6 out of 10. The latter result suggests a high degree of dissatisfaction among BI users. Emerging pure-play vendors (including QlikTech, Tableau, Tibco and LogiXML) and the large pure-plays MicroStrategy and Information Builders scored above average on both dimensions. Megavendors Oracle and Microsoft performed better than average, but IBM (Cognos) and SAP fell below the mean. Recommendation: Include the quality of technical support services in your vendor evaluations, and take them into account when you negotiate maintenance terms. Figure 1. Overall Customer Experience 
N = 897
Source: Gartner (February 2010) 
Satisfaction With Vendors Versus Improvement in Future Outlook: The survey indicates that the entrance of megavendors into the BI market will not cause the pure-play vendors to disappear as some have feared. BI leaders remain optimistic about the future of the vendors that they use as a standard, and even of some small pure-play vendors. Figure 2 shows respondents' overall experience with their vendor against their assessment of whether their vendor's future prospects have improved since 2008. The horizontal axis (overall BI platform success score) represents composite (aggregate) ratings for product capabilities, support, sales experience, product quality and performance, with equal weightings for each — the higher the composite score, the more positive the overall experience with the vendor. The vertical axis records responses to our question about whether respondents were more concerned about the vendor in 2009, more positive, or unchanged in their view (1 = more concerned about the vendor's future; 4 = more positive about the vendor's future). Figure 2. Satisfaction With Vendors Versus Change in Future Outlook 
N = 897
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
In general, judgments about the vendor's future correspond to respondents' satisfaction with their vendor. Many pure-play vendors scored above the average for both metrics, as did Oracle and Microsoft. However, even though IBM and SAP scored below average for overall BI platform success, they scored average for their customers' view of their future. This paradox suggests that customers still have high confidence in IBM and SAP's future, although it is less pronounced than in last year's survey, Newcomer LogiXML received some of the highest overall BI platform success ratings, yet customers worry about the future of this small startup. BI Standardization: An acquisition spree has shifted the center of gravity in the BI market toward the megavendors, and Gartner predicts that this trend toward software stacks will continue. Figure 3 shows the percentage of customers that have chosen their vendor as the enterprise standard. The four megavendors feature among the vendors used by enterprises standardizing their BI, but many large pure-play vendors, such as MicroStrategy and Information Builders, also attract customers that are standardizing. Recommendation: Don't automatically buy a BI platform from your major software supplier. Also evaluate independent BI suppliers, and pick the vendor that best suits your needs for functions, integration and cost. Figure 3. Percentage of Vendor Customers That Consider Its BI Platform Their Enterprise BI Standard 
N = 897
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
Small vendors provide the BI platform standard for some enterprises, but these enterprises likewise tend to be small. Figure 4 shows that most customers of Board, LogiXML and Targit have made them an enterprise standard, but these customers are less than half the size of the average company in the survey. Enterprises deploy SAS and many of the small pure-plays, including QlikTech, Tableau and Tibco, alongside an enterprise standard to fill needs not met by the standard vendors. Figure 4. BI Standardization Versus Customer Size 
N = 897
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
Customers' Satisfaction With Specific Aspects of Vendors' Performance Decisions about buying, upgrading or standardizing may hinge on the vendor's performance in specific areas, depending on the nature of an enterprise's project. The survey asked BI leaders to rate their vendors in a number of areas. BI Platform Usage: IT organizations struggle to get workers to use the BI systems they have implemented. The survey found significant differences between BI vendors in how much their products are used for differing BI activities (see Figure 5). The survey asked about reporting, ad hoc analysis, dashboards, scorecards and predictive analytics. The bars in Figure 5 show the percentage of customers using each function and the total of all those percentages for each vendor (which therefore exceeds 100%). Tableau and QlikTech customers reported using these platforms most broadly, while Actuate users reported the narrowest usage. Customers used Tableau and Tibco the most for exploratory, ad hoc analysis — a use case of growing importance. Megavendors SAP and IBM were used on average more narrowly than most other BI platforms. Figure 5. Number of Customers Using Vendors for BI Activities 
N = 799
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
Support and Software Quality: Customers of pure-play vendors report better customer support and higher-quality software on average than customers of the large vendors (see Figure 6). The range of responses varies widely. 60% of Tableau customers reported no problems with the software, while only 30% or less reported no problems with BI products from IDS Scheer, IBM, SAP and SAS. Megavendors Microsoft and Oracle earned above-average scores for both support and software quality. MicroStrategy and Information Builders scored particularly well on both measures, a result of well-integrated platforms that the vendors developed organically and strong support organizations that have not been disrupted by acquisitions. Jaspersoft, an open-source vendor that generates its core revenue from support, scored higher in this category than any megavendor. Figure 6. Rating of BI Vendors on Support and Software Quality 
Customer support was scored on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 to 2 = poor, 3 to 5 = average, 6 to 7 = outstanding). This score was normalized to a scale of 1 to 10.
N = 897
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
BI Migration Experience: More than half the respondents had experienced at least one migration or product upgrade (see Figure 7). The survey found that 51.5% of respondents said their enterprise runs the latest version of their vendor's BI platform, with only 9.3% of respondents having never run a previous version. That is, more than half the respondents have experienced at least one migration or product upgrade, but the numbers vary widely between vendors. Over 90% of Tableau customers run the latest version of the product, while only about 20% of Panorama, Actuate and Board customers do. Only 51% of SAP customers run the latest release — less than customers of the other megavendors (Microsoft, IBM and Oracle), each of which had 55% or more of their customers running the latest release. Figure 7. BI Platform Version Deployed 
N = 897
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
Overall, 69% of survey respondents rated their migration experience as extremely straightforward or straightforward (see Figure 8). Over 40% of IBM and SAP customers on average reported complex or extremely complex migrations — over one and a half times the average for the large independent vendors (SAS, MicroStrategy and Information Builders). Recommendation: If you have not yet moved to the latest version of your BI platform, do not assume that upgrades will be simple. Research the cost and effort required to migrate. Figure 8. Migration Experience of BI Customers 
N= 462
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
Efficiency: The survey asked about the number of users on the system, the amount of data it handled and the number of administrators used to manage the system (see Figure 9). The blue circles represent the number of administrators, while the horizontal and vertical axes represent the amount of data and number of users, respectively (see Note 4 for the actual number of administrators represented by the blue circles). Actuate had the largest number of users for the average deployment, Board the fewest. MicroStrategy managed the largest data sets, IDS Scheer, and Board the smallest. On average, megavendors supported 11 times the users and five times the data volumes with less than three times the number of administrators, compared with the average of pure-play vendors QlikTech, Tibco, Tableau and Board. However, the megavendors were less efficient than the large pure-plays (SAS, MicroStrategy and Information Builders); the megavendors supported on average 1.5 times the number of users and 0.94 times the data, with 1.7 times the administrators. Figure 9. Efficiency of BI Platforms Measured by Users, Data and Administrators 
N = 799
Source: Gartner (February 2010)
Figure 10 normalizes the number of administrators reported to a per 1,000 end user and per 1,000GB scale. Megavendors require fewer administrators on average per 1,000 users or 1,000GB. MicroStrategy customers report the lowest numbers both per 1,000 users and per 1,000GB, an efficiency that contributes to the vendor's low total cost of ownership. Figure 10. Efficiency of BI Platforms Measured by Administrators per 1,000 End Users and per 1,000 Gigabytes 
N = 799
Source: Gartner (February 2010) | 
Une intéressante étude de Gartner qui représente "l'avis des consommateurs" de la BI.