BI winners and losers - 2009 Predictions

Winners
1. SaaS (Software as a Service)
2. Cloud
3. Analytics

Loser
1. SOA

Backburner
1. MDM
2. Data Quality
3. Metadata

Have a look at the complete list here or summary here.

Amidst the current economic conditions, it makes sense for lower capital cost models like SaaS gain popularity and "luxuries" like MDM and Meta Data Management to be set aside for better days to come. While the benefits of MDM, DQ and Meta Data in the long run cannot be denied, a lot of management people I know are yet to become seers.

Another interesting factor to consider is the advent of open source tools atleast on the BI side if not on the ETL side. Companies who will consider tackling the "Cost" beast will find tools like BIRT promising and interesting. Atleast medium size companies might try it out.

Also making a part of the high level data available across the enterprise and building a "enterprise search" functionality is lacking in most BI tools / Implementations. Information Access tools like Endeca can target this market.

Now the combination of Open source, SaaS and Cloud is a very promising market yet to be taken up by consulting firms. Lack of "Open source" tool experts, the "convincing the management" process on cloud and SaaS is still going to be a hurdle to this option.

And then, with the economic depression looming, you never know!