BI Software Vendor Targets Midmarket

Business intelligence software is primarily used by large companies, but Business Objects hopes to change that with a new offering released Monday. The company's Crystal Decisions, Standard Edition, starting at $20,000 for five users, is aimed at businesses with less than $1 billion in revenue.

The company says it developed the product to be easier to deploy and implement than its enterprise-class offerings but without sacrificing features. Standard Edition offers ad hoc reporting, query, and analysis; dashboards and visualizations; ability to access company data in Microsoft Office and SharePoint; and an open platform that's designed to integrate with existing applications.

The company also is planning more beefed-up versions of Crystal Decisions this year, called Professional Edition and Premium Edition. The product line is a melding of Business Objects original ad hoc reporting technologies and enterprise reporting technologies it absorbed in its $820 million acquisition of Crystal Decisions in 2003.

Business Objects itself is the target of ongoing rumors about an acquisition by Oracle. The rumors surfaced again in late January, helping push Business Objects' stock price up through last week. Last Friday it was trading at about $38.50, near its 52-week high of $40.94. The company will announce the results of its 2006 fiscal year Tuesday. For its third quarter ended Sept. 30, its revenue was $310 million, up 19% year over year.

In a market report released in January, Gartner says that organizations are increasing spending on BI, and it projects revenue from BI software to grow at a compound annual rate of 9.5% through 2010.